I 

I 



I ' 



1 




Book 



/■/ 



WITCH STOKIES 



COLLECTED BY 

y 
E. LYNN LINTON, 

AUTHOR OF •' AZETH THE EGYPTIAN," " AMYMONE," ETC. 



■ Thou Shalt not suffer a witch to live."— Exodus xxii. 18. 



. Y of Cono-- 

/o LONDON: 
CHAPMAN AND HALL, 193 PICCADILLY. 

1861. 

[ The right of Translation reserved.'] 



^^^'^''' 

^^v*^ 



LONDON: PIIINT-ED BY W. CLOWES AXD SONS, STAMFOBD STBIET. 



PEEFACE. 



In offering the following collection of witch stories to 
the public, I do not profess to have exhausted the sub- 
ject, or to have made so complete a summary as I might 
have done, had I been admitted into certain private 
libraries, which contain, I believe, many concealed 
riches. But I had no means of introduction to them, 
and was obliged to be content with such authorities as 
I found in the British Museum, and the other public 
Kbraries to which I had access. I do not think that I 
have left much untold ; but there must be, scattered 
about England, old MSS. and unique copies of records 
concerning which I can find only meagre allusions, or 
the mere names of the victims, without a distinctive fact 
to mark their special history. Should this book come 
to a second edition, any help from the possessors of 
these hitherto unpublished documents would be a gain 
to the public, and a privilege which I trust may be 
afforded me. 

Neither have I attempted to enter into the phi- 
losophy of the subject. It is far too wide and deep to 
be discussed in a few hasty words ; and to sift such 
evidence as is left us — to determine what was fraud, 
what self-deception, what actual disease, and what the 
exaggeration of the narrator — would have swelled my 



iv PREFACE. 

book into a far more important and bulky work than 
I iQtended or wished. As a general rule, I think we 
may apply all the four conditions to every case reported; 
in what proportion, each reader must judge for himself. 
Those who believe in direct and personal intercourse be- 
tween the spirit-world and man, will probably accept 
every account with the unquestioning belief of the six- 
teenth and seventeenth centm-ies ; those who have faith 
in the calm and uniform operations of nature, will hold 
chiefly to the doctrine of fraud ; those who have seen 
much of disease and that strange condition called " mes- 
merism," or "sensitiveness," will allow the presence of 
absolute nervous derangement, mixed up with a vast 
amount of conscious deception, which the insane cre- 
dulity and marvellous ignorance of the time rendered 
easy to practise ; and those who have been accustomed 
to sift evidence and examine witnesses, will be utterly 
dissatisfied with the loose statements and wild distortion 
of every instance on record. 

E. LYNN LINTON. 
London, 1861. 



^^t Mxtt^tB a{ Smtkit^. 



Scotland was always foremost in superstition. Her 
wild Mils and lonely feUs seemed the fit haunting- 
places for all mysterious powers ; and long after spirits 
had fled, and ghosts had been laid in the level plains of 
the South, they were to be found lingering about the 
glens and glades of Scotland. Very little of graceful 
fancy lighted up the gloom of those popular super- 
stitions. Even Elfame, or Faerie, was a place of dread 
and ang-uish, where the devil ruled heavy-handed and 
Hell claimed its yearly tithe, rather than the home of fun 
and beauty and petulant gaiety as with other nations : 
and the beautiful White Ladies, like the German Elle- 
women, had more of bale than bliss as their portion to 
scatter among the sons of men. Spirits like the gobhn 
Gilpin Horner, full of maHce and unholy cunning, — like 
grewsome brownies, at times unutterably terrific, at 
times grotesque and rude, but then more satyr-like than 
elfish, — like May Moulachs, lean and hairy-armed, 
watching over the fortunes of a family, but prophetic 
only of woe, not of weal, — like the cruel Kelpie, 
hiding behind the river sedges to rush out on unwary 
passers-by, and strangle them beneath the waters, — like 
the unsained laidly Elf, who came tempting Christian 

B 



2 THE WITCHES OF SCOTLAND. 

women, to their souls' eternal perdition if they yielded to 
the desires of their bodies, — like the fatal Banshie,-. 
harbinger of death and ruin, — were the popular forms 
of the Scottish spirit-world ; and in none of them do 
we find either love or gentleness, but only fierceness 
and crime, enmity to man and rebellion to God. But 
saddest and darkest and unholiest of all was the belief 
in witchcraft, which infested society for centm-ies like a 
sore eating through to the very heart of humanity, and 
which was nowhere more bitter and destructive than 
among the godly children of our Northern sister. 
Strange that the land of the Lord should have been the 
favourite camping-ground of Satan, that the hill of 
Zion should have had its roots in the depths of Tophet ! 
The formulas of the faith were as gloomy as the 
persons. The power of the evil eye ; the faculty of 
second sight, which always saw the hearse plumes, and 
never the bridal roses ; the supremacy of the devil in 
this God-governed world of ours, and the actual and 
practical covenant into which men and women daily 
entered with him ; the unlimited influence of the curse, 
and the sin and mischief to be wrought by charm and 
spell ; the power of casting sickness on whomsoever one 
would, and the ease with which a blight could be sent 
on the corn, and a murrain to the beasts, by those who 
had not wherewithal to stay their hunger for a day, 
these were the chief signs of that fatal power with 
which Satan endowed his chosen ones — those silly, luck- 
less chapmen who bartered away their immortal souls for 
no mess of pottage even, and no earthly good to breath 
or body, but only that they might harm their neighbours 
and revenge themselves on those who crossed them. 
Sometimes, indeed, they had no need to chaffer with the 
devil for such faculties: as in the matter of the evil 



THE WITCHES OF SCOTLAND. 3 

eye ; for Kirk, of Aberfoyle, tells us that " some are ot 
so venomous a Constitution, by being radiated in Envy 
and Malice, that tliey pierce and kill (like a Cockatrice) 
whatever Creature they first set their Eyes on in the 
Morninof : so was it with Walter Grrahame, some Time 
livinof in the Parock wherein now I am, who killed his 
own Cow after commending its Fatness, and shot a Hair 
with his Eyes, having praised its Swiftness (such was the 
Infection of ane Evill Eye) ; albeit this was unusual, yet 
he saw no Object but what was obvious to other Men as 
well as to himselfe." And a certain woman looking 
over the door of a byre or cowhouse, where a neighbour 
sat milking, shot the calf dead and dried up and sick- 
ened the cow, "by the venomous glance of her evil] 
eye." But perhaps she had got that venom by covenant 
with the devil ; for this was one of the prescriptive pos- 
sessions of a witch, and ever the first dole from the 
Satanic treasury. When Janet Irving was brought to 
trial (1616) for unholy dealings with the foul fiend, it 
was proved — for was it not sworn to ? and that was 
quite sufficient legal proof in all witchcraft cases — that 
he had told her " yf schoe bure ill-will to onie bodie, to 
look on them with opin eyis, and pray eviU for thame 
ia his name, and schoe sould get hir hartis desyi-e;" 
and in almost every witch trial in Scotland the " evil 
eye " formed part^of the counts of indictment against the 
accused. The curse was as efficacious. Did a foul- 
mouthed old dame give a neighbour a handful of words 
more forcible than courteous, and did terror, or revenge, 
induce, or simulate, a nervous seizure in consequence, 
the old dame was at once carried off to the lock-up, and 
but few chances of escape lay between her and the 
stake beyond. To be skilful in healing, too, was just as 
dangerous as to be powerful in sickening ; and to the 



4t THE WITCHES OF SCOTLAND. 

godly and unclean of the period all sorts of devilish 
cantrips lay in " south-running waters " and herb drinks, 
and salves made of simples ; while the use of bored 
stones, of prayers said thrice or backwards, of " mwildis" 
powders, or any other more patent form of witchcraft, 
though it might restore the sick to health, yet was 
fatally sure to land the user thereof at the foot of the 
gallows, and the testimony of the healed friend was 
the strongest strand in the hangman's cord. This, 
indeed, was the saddest feature in the whole matter — 
the total want of all gratitude, reliance, trustiness, or 
affection between a "witch" and her friends. The 
dearest intimate she had gave evidence against her 
frankly, and without a second thought of the long years 
of mutual help and kindliness that had gone before; 
the neighbour whom she had nursed night and day 
with all imaginable tenderness and self-devotion, if he 
took a craze and dreamed of witchcraft, came forward 
to distort and exaggerate every remedy she had used, 
and every art she had employed; her very children 
turned against her without pity or remorse, and little 
lips, scarce dry from the milk of her own breasts, lisped 
out the glibbest lies of all. Most pitiful, most sad, was 
the state of these poor wretches ; but instructive to us, 
as evidencing the strength of superstition, and the 
weakness of every human virtue when brought into 
contact and collision with it. What other gifts and 
powers belonged to the witches will be best gathered 
from the stories themselves ; for varied as they are, 
there is a strange thread of likeness running through 
them all ; specially is there a likeness in all of a time 
or district, as might be expected in a matter which 
belonged so much to mere imitation. 

Scotland played an unenviable part in the great 



THE WITCHES OF SCOTLAND. 5 

witch panic that swept like an epidemic over Europe 
diirino: the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. It 
suited with the stern, uncompromising, Puritan temper, 
to tear this accursed thing from the heart of the nation, 
and offer it, bleeding and palpitating, as a sacrifice to 
the Lord ; and accordingly we find the witch trials of 
Scotland conducted with more severity than elsewhere, 
and with a more gloomy and savage fanaticism of 
faith. Those who dared question the truth of even the 
most unreKable witnesses and the most monstrous state- 
ments- were accused of atheism and infidelity — they 
were Sadducees and sinners — men given over to corrup- 
tion and uncleanness, with whom no righteous servant 
could hold any terms. And then the ministers mingled 
themselves in the fray ; and the Kirk like the Church, 
the presbyter like the priest, proved to be on the side 
of intolerance and superstition, where, unfortunately, 
priests of all creeds have ever been. And when 
James YI. came with his narrow brain and selfish 
heart, to formularize the witch-lie into a distinct canon 
of arbitrary faith, and give it increased political signi- 
ficance and social power, the reign of humanity and 
common sense was at an end, and the autocracy of 
cruelty and superstition began. It is a dreary page in 
human history ; but so long as a spark of superstition 
lingers in the world it ^vill have its special and direct 
uses. 

The first time we hear of Scottish witches was when 
St. Patrick offended them and the devil alike by his 
uncompromising rigour against them : so they tore off 
a piece of a rock as he was crossing the sea and hurled 
it after him ; which rock became the fortress of Dum- 
barton in the days which knew not St. Patrick. Then 
there was the story of King Duif (968), who pined 



6 THE WITCHES OF SCOTLAKD. 

away in mortal sickness, by reason of the waxen image 
wliicli had been made to destroy him ; but by the for- 
tunate discovery of a young maiden who could not bear 
torture silently, he was enabled to find the witches — 
whom he burnt at Forres in Murray, the mother of 
the poor maiden who could not bear torture among 
them : enabled, too, to save himself by breaking the 
wasting waxen image roasting at the " soft " fire, when 
almost at its last turn. Then we come to Thomas of 
Ercildoune, whom the Queen of Faerie loved and kept ; 
and then to Sir Michael Scot of Balweary, that famous 
wizard, second to none in power ; while a little further 
removed from those legendary times we see the dark 
figure of William Lord Soulis, ^ho was boiled to death 
at Nine Stane Brig, in fitting punishment for his crimes. 
And then in 1479 twelve mean women and several 
wizards were burnt at Edinburgh for roasting the king 
in wax, and so endangering the life of the sovereign liege 
in a manner which no human aid could remedy ; and 
the Earl of Mar was at their head, and very properly 
burnt too. And in 1480 Incubi and Succubi held the 
land between them, and even the young lady of Mar 
gave herself up to the embraces of an Incubus — a 
hideous monster, utterly loathsome and deadly to be- 
hold ; and if the young ladies of the nobility could do 
such things, what might not be expected from the com- 
monalty? But now we come out into the light of 
written history, and the first corpse lying on the 
threshold is that of the beautiful Lady Glammis 
(1537). 



THE STORY OF LADY GLAMMLS.* 

One of the earliest, as slie was one of the noblest, 
victims of this delusion, politics and jealousy had as 
much to do with her death as had superstition. Be- 
cause she was " one of the Douglases," and not because 
she was convicted as a sorceress, did William Lyon 
find her so easy a victim to his hate. For it was he — 
the near relative of her first husband, "Cleanse the 
Causey " John Lyon, Lord Glammis, — who ruined her, 
and brought her yoimg days to so shameful an end. 
And had he not cause ? Did she not reject him when 
left a widow, young and beautiful as but few were to be 
found in all the Scottish land ? and, rejecting him, did 
she not favour Archibald Campbell of Kessneath in- 
stead, and make over to him the lands and the beauties 
he had coveted for himself, even during the life of 
that puling relative of his, " Cleanse the Causey " ? 
Matter enough for revenge in this, thought Wilham 
Lyon : and the revenge he took came easy to his hand, 
and in fullest measure. For Lady Glammis, daughter 
of George, Master of Angus, and grand-daughter of that 
brave old savage, Archibald Bell-the-Cat, was in no 
great favour with a court which had disgTaced her 
grandfather, and banished her brother ; and conse- 
quently she found no protection there from the man 
who was seeking her ruin. Perhaps, too, she had mixed 
herself up with the court feuds and parties then so 
common, and thus had given some positive cause of 
offence to a government which must crush if it would 
not be crushed, and extirpate if it would not be de- 
stroyed. Be that as it may, WilKam Lyon soon 
gathered material for an accusation, and Lady Glammis 

** Pitcaim's ' Scottisli Criminal Trials.' 



8 THE WITCHES OF SCOTLAND. 

found that if she would not have his love he would 
have her life. She was accused on various counts ; for 
having procured the death of her first husband by 
" intoxication," or unholy drugging, for a design to 
poison the king, and for witchcraft generally, as a 
matter of daily Kfe and open notoriety ; and for these 
crimes she was burnt, notwithstanding her beauty and 
wealth and innocence and high-hearted bravery, not- 
withstanding her popularity — for she was beloved by all 
who knew her — and the honour of her stainless name. 
And once more, as so often, hatred conquered love, and 
the innocent died that the guilty might be at rest. 

I must omit any lengthened notice of the trial of 
Janet Bowman in 1572, as also of that of a notable 
witch Nicneven, which name, " generally given to the 
Queen of the Fairies, was probably bestowed upon her 
on account of her crimes, and who, when ' her collore 
craig with stringis whairon wes mony knottis' was 
taken from her, gave way to despair, exclaiming, ' Now 
I have no hoip of myself,' saying, too, that ' she cared 
not whether she went to heaven or to hell.' " The 
Eecord has preserved nothing beyond the mere fact of 
the first, while the foregoing extract is all that I can 
find of the second ; so that I am obliged to pass on to 
the pitiful tale of — 

BESSIE DUNLOP AND THOM EEID.* 

Poor douce honest Bessie Dunlop, spouse to Andro 
Jak in Lyne, deposed, after torture, on the 8th day of 
November, 1576, that one day, as she was going quietly 
enough between her own house and Monkcastle yard, 
" makeand hevye sair dule with hirseh'," 

* Pitcairn's * Scottish. Criminal Trials.' 



BESSIE DUNLOP AND THOM REID. 9 

bitterly for her cow that was dead, and her husband 
and child who were lying " sick in the land-ill," she 
herself still weak after gissane, or child-birth, she met 
" ane honest, wele, elderhe man, gray bairdit, and had 
ane gray coitt with Lumbart slevis of the auld fassoun ; 
ane pair of gray brekis and quhyte schankis gartanit 
abone the kne ; ane blak bonet on his held, cloise 
behind and plane befoir, with silkin laissis drawin throw 
the lippis thairof ; and ane quhyte wand in his hand.' 
This was Thorn Reid, who had been killed at the battle 
of Pinkye (1547), but was now a dweller in Elf am e, or 
Fairy Land. Thom stopped her, saying, " Gude day, 
Bessie." " God speid yow, gude man," says she. 
" Sancta Marie," says he, " Bessie, quhy makis thow sa 
grit dule and sair greting for ony wardlie thing?" 
Bessie told him her troubles, poor woman, and the 
little old gray-bearded man consoled her by assuring 
her that though her cow and her child should die, yet 
her husband would recover; and Bessie, after being 
" sumthing fleit " at seeing him pass through a hole in 
the dyke too narrow for any honest mortal to pass 
tlii'ough, yet retm^ned home, comforted to think that 
the gude man would mend. After this, she and Thom 
foregathered several times. At the third interview he 
wanted her to deny her baptism, but honest Bessie said 
that she would rather be " revin at horis taillis " (riven 
at horses' tails) ; and on the fourth he came to her own 
house, and took her clean away from the presence of her 
husband and three tailors — they seeing nothing — to 
where an assemblage of eight women and four men were 
waiting for her. " The men wer cled in gentilmennes 
clething, and the wemens had all plaidis round about 
them, and wer verrie semelie lyke to se." They were 
the " gude wychtis that wynnit (dwelt) in the court of 



10 THE WITCHES OF SCOTLAND. 

Elfame," and tliey had come to persuade her to go back 
to fairy-land with them, where she should have meat 
and clothing, and be richly dowered in all things. But 
Bessie refused. Poor crazed Bessie had a loyal heart if 
but a silly head, and preferred her husband and chil- 
dren to all the substantial pleasures of Elfame, though 
Thorn was angry with her for refusing, and told her " it 
would be worse for her." 

Once, too, the queen of the fairies, a stout, comely 
woman, came to her, as she was " lying in gissane," and 
asked for a drink, which Bessie gave her. Sitting 
on her bed, she said that the child would die, but that 
the husband would recover ; for Andro Jak seems to 
have been but an ailing body, often like to find out 
the Great Mysteries for himself, and Bessie was never 
quite easy about him. Then Thom began to teach 
her the art of healing. He gave her roots to make 
into salves and powders for kow or yow (cow or sheep), 
or for "ane bairne that was tane away with ane 
evill blast of wind or elfgrippit :" and she cured many 
people by the old man's fairy teaching. She healed 
Lady Johnstone's daughter, married to the young Laird 
of Stanelie, by giving her a drink brewed under Thom's 
auspices, namely, strong ale boiled with cloves, ginger, 
aniseed, liquorice, and white sugar, which warmed the 
" cauld blude that gaed about hir hart, that causit hir to 
dwam and vigous away," or, as we would say, to swoon. 
And she cured John Jake's bairn, and Wilson's of the 
tow^n, and her gudeman's sister's cow; but old Lady 
Kilbowye's leg was beyond them both. It had been 
crooked all her life, and now Thom said it would never 
mend, because "the march of the bane was consumit, 
and the blude dosinit " (the marrow was consumed, and 
the blood benumbed). It was hopeless, and it would 



BESSIE DUNLOP AKD THOM EEID. 11 

"be worse for lier if she asked for fairy help again. 
Bessie got fame too as a " monthly " of Lyne. A green 
silk lace, received from Thorn's own hand, tacked to 
then- "wylie coitts" and knit about their left arms, 
helped much in the delivery of women. She lost the 
lace, insinuating that Thom took it away again, but 
kept her fatal character for more medical skill than 
belonged to an ordinary canny old wife. In the re- 
covery of stolen goods, too, she was effective, and what 
she could not find she could at least indicate. Thus, 
she told the seekers that Hugh Scott's cloak could not 
be returned, because it had been made into a kirtle, and 
that James Baird and Henry Jameson would not 
recover their plough irons, because James Douglas, the 
sheriff's officer, had accepted a bribe of three pounds 
not to find them. Lady Blair having " dang and 
wrackit " her servants on account of certain linen which 
had been stolen from her, learnt from Bessie, prompted 
by Thom, that the thief was no other than Margaret 
Symple, her o^vn friend and relation, and that she had 
dang and wrackit innocent persons to no avail. Bessie 
never allowed that Thom's intercourse with her was 
other than honest and well conducted. Once only he 
took hold of her apron to drag her away to EKame with 
him ; but this was more in the way of persuasion than 
love making, and she indignantly denied the home 
questions put to her by the judges with but scant 
delicacy or feeling for an honest woman's shame. In- 
terrogated, she said that she often saw Thom going 
about like other men. He would be in the streets of 
Edinburgh, on market days and other, handling goods 
like any living body, but she never spoke to him unless 
he spoke first to her : he had forbidden her to do so. 
The last time she met him before her arrest he told her 



12 THE WITCHES OF SCOTLAND, 

of the evil that was to come, but buoyed her up with 
false hopes, assuring her that she would be well treated, 
and eventually cleared. Poor Bessie Dunlop ! After 
being cruelly tortured, her not very strong brain was 
utterly disorganized, and she confessed whatever they 
chose to tax her with, rambling through her wild 
dreamy narrative with strange facility of imagination, 
and with more coherence and likelihood, than are to be 
found in those who came after her. Adjudged as 
*' confessit and fylit," she was " convict and brynt " on 
the Castle Hill of Edinburgh — a mournful commentary 
on her elfin friend's brave words and promises. 



ALISON PEAKSON AND THE FAIEY FOLK.* 

On the 28th of May, 1588, Alesoun Peirsoun, in 
Byrehill, was haled before a just judge and sapient 
jury on the charge of witchcraft, and seven years' 
consorting with the fairy folk. This Alesoun Peirsoun, 
or, as we should now write it, Alison Pearson, had 
a certain cousin, one William Simpson, a clever 
doctor, who had been educated in Egypt ; taken there 
by a man of Egypt, " ane gyant," who, it is to be 
supposed, taught him many of the secrets of nature then 
hidden from the vulgar world. During his absence, 
his father, who was smith to king's majesty, died for 
opening of " ane preist-buik and luking vpoune it :" 
which showed the tendency of the family. When Mr. 
William came back he found Alison afflicted with many 
diseases, powerless in hand and foot, and otherwise 
evilly holden ; and he cured her, being a skilful man 
and a kindly, and ever after obtained unlimited influence 

* Pitcairn. 



ALISOX PEAESON AND THE FAIKY FOLK. 13 

over the brain and imagination of his crazed cousin. 
He abused this influence by taking her with liim to 
fairy land, and introducing her to the " glide wychtis," 
whose company he had affected for many years. In 
especial was she much linked with the Queen of Elfame, 
who might have helped her, had she been so minded. 
One day being sick in Grange Muir, she lay down there 
alone, when a man in green suddenly appeared to her 
and said that if she would be faithful he would do her 
good. She cried for help, and then charged him in 
God's name, and by the law he lived on, that if he 
came in God's name and for the weKare of her soul, he 
would tell her. He passed away on this, and soon 
after a lusty man, and many other men and women 
came to her, and she passed away with them foi'ther 
than she could tell ; but not before she had " sanit," 
or blessed herseK and prayed. And then she saw 
piping, and merriness, and good cheer, and puncheons of 
wine with " tassis," or cups to them. But the fairy 
folk were not kind to Alison. They tormented her 
sorely, and treated her with gTeat harshness, knocking 
her about and beating her so that they took all the 
" poustie," or power out of her side with one of their 
heavy " straiks," and left her covered with bruises, 
blue and evil-favoured. She was never fi-ee from her 
questionable associates, who used to come upon her at 
all times and initiate her into their secrets, whether she 
liked it or no. They showed her how they gathered 
their herbs before sunrise, and she would watch them 
with their pans and foes making the " saws " or salves 
that could kill or cm-e all who used them, according to 
the witches' will ; and they used to come and sit by her, 
and once took all the " poustie " from her for twenty 
weeks. Mr. William was then with them. He was a 



14 THE WITCHES OF SCOTLAND. 

young man, not six years older than herself, and she 
would " feir " (be afraid) when she saw him. What 
with fairy teaching, and Mr. William's clinical lectures, 
half-crazed Alison soon got a reputation for healing 
powers ; so great, indeed, that the Bishop of St. Andrews, 
a wretched hypochondriac, with as many diseases as 
would fill half the wards of an hospital, applied to her 
for some of her charms and remedies, which she had 
sense enough to make palateable, and such as should 
suit episcopal tastes : namely, spiced claret (a quart to 
be drunk at two draughts), and boiled capon as the 
internal remedies, with some fairy salve for outward 
application. It scarcely needed a long apprenticeship 
in witchcraft to prescribe claret and capon for a luxu- 
rious prelate who had brought himself into a state of 
chronic dyspepsia by laziness and high living ; yet 
the jury thought the recipe of such profound wisdom 
that Alison got badly off on its account. 

Mr. William was very careful of Alison. He used to 
go before the fairy folk when they set out on the whirl- 
winds to plague her — " for they are ever in the blowing 
sea-wind," said Allie — and tell her of their coming; 
and he was very urgent that she should not go away 
with them altogether, since a tithe of them was yearly 
taken down to hell, and converts had always first 
chance. But many people known to her on earth were 
at Elfame. She said that she recognized Mr. Secretary 
Lethington, and the old Knight of Buccleugh, as of the 
party; which was equivalent to putting them out of 
heaven, and was a grievous libel, as the times went. 
Neither Mr. William's care nor fairy power could save 
poor Alison. After being " wirreit (strangled) at ane 
staik," she was " conuicta et combusta," never more to be 
troubled by epilepsy or the feverish dreams of madness.^ 



15 



THE CRIMES OF LADY FOWLIS.* 

Nobler names come next upon the records. Ka- 
tlierine Koiss, Lady Fowlis, and her stepson, Hector 
Munro, were tried on the 22nd of June, 1590, for 
*^ witchcraft, incantation, sorcery, and poisoning." Two 
people were in the lady's way : Margery Campbell the 
young lady of Balnagown, wife to George Koiss or 
Koss of Balnagown, Lady Katherine's brother ; and 
Eobert Munro her stepson, the present baron of Fowlis, 
and brother to the Hector Mum^o above mentioned. If 
these two persons were dead, then Greorge Eoss could 
marry the young Lady Fowlis, to the pecuniary ad- 
vantage of himself and the family. Hector's quarrel 
was on his own account, and was with George Munro of 
Obisdale, Lady Katherine's eldest son. The charges 
against the Lady Katherine were, the unlawful making 
of two pictures or images of clay, representing the 
young lady of Balnagown and Bobert Munro, which 
pictures two notorious witches. Christian Eoss and 
Marioune M'Alester, alias Loskie Loncart, set up in a 
chamber and shot at with elf arrows — ancient spear or 
arrow-heads, found in Scotland and Ireland, and of 
great account in all matters of witchcraft. But the 
images of clay were not broken by the arrow-heads, for 
all that they shot eight times at them, and twelve 
times on a subsequent trial, and thus the spell was 
destroyed for the moment; but Loskie Loncart had 
orders to make more, which she did with a will. After 
this the lady and her two confederates brewed a stoup, 
or pailful of poison in the barn at Drumnyne, which 
was to be sent to Eobert Munro. The pail leaked and 

* Pitcaii-n. 



16 THE WITCHES OF SCOTLAND. 

the poison ran out, except a very small quantity which 
an unfortunate page belonging to the lady tasted, 
and " lay continewallie thaireftir poysonit with the 
liquour." Again, another " pig " or jar of poison was 
prepared; this time of double strength — the brewer 
thereof that old sinner, Loskie Loncart, who had a hand 
in every evil pie made. This was sent to the young 
laird by the hands of Lady Katherine's foster-mother ; 
but she broke the " pig " by the way, and, like the 
page, tasting the contents, paid the penalty of her 
curiosity with her life. The poison was of such a 
virulent nature that nor cow nor sheep would touch the 
grass whereon it fell ; and soon the herbage withered 
away in fearful memorial of that deed of guilt. She 
was more successful in her attempts on the young Lady 
Balnagown. Her " dittay " sets forth that the poor 
girl, tasting of her sister-in-law's infernal potions, con- 
tracted an incurable disease, the pain and anguish she 
suffered revolting even the wretch who administered 
the poison, Catherine Niven, who " scunnerit (revolted) 
with it sae meikle, that she said it was the sairest and 
maist cruel sight that ever she saw." But she did not 
die. Youth and life were strong in her, and conquered 
even malice and poison — conquered even the fiendish 
determination of the lady, •• that she would do, by all 
kind of means, wherever it might be had, of God in 
heaven, or the devil in hell, for the destruction and 
down-putting of Marjoiy Campbell." Nothing daunted, 
the lady sent far and wide, and now openly, for various 
poisons ; consulting with " Egyptians " and notorious 
witches as to what would best " suit the complexion " 
of her victims, and whether the ratsbane, which was a 
favourite medicine with her, should be administered in 
eggs, broth, or cabbage. She paid many sums, too, for 



THE CEIMES OF LADY FOWLIS. 17 

clay images, and elf arrows wherewith to shoot at them, 
and her wickedness at last grew too patent for even her 
exalted rank to overshadow. She was arrested and 
arraigned, but the private prosecutor was Hector Munro, 
who was soon to change liis place of advocate for that 
of " pannel ;" and the jury was composed of the Fowlis 
dependents. So she was acqiutted ; though many of her 
creatures had previously been convicted and burnt on 
the same charges as those now made against her; 
notably Cristiane Roiss, who, confessing to the clay 
image and the elf arrows, was quietly burnt for the same. 
Hector Munro's trial was of a somewhat different 
character. Hjs stepmother does not seem to have had 
much confidence in mere sorcery : she put her faith in 
facts rather than in incantations, and preferred di'ugs to 
charms : but Hector was more superstitious and more 
cowardly too. In 1588, he had communed with three 
notorious witches for the recovery of his elder brother, 
Robert ; and the witches had " pollit the hair of Robert 
Munro, and plet the naillis of his fingeris and taes ;" 
but Robert had died in spite of these charms, and now 
Hector was the chief man of his family. Parings of 
nails, cKppings of hair, water wherein enchanted stones 
had been laid, black Pater-Nosters, banned plaids and 
cloths, were all of as much potency in his mind as the 
** ratoun poysoun " so dear to the lady ; and the method 
of his intended murder rested on such means as these. 
They made a goodly pair between them, and embodied 
a fair proportion of the intelhgence and morality of the 
time, x^fter a small j)iece of preliminary sorcery, un- 
dertaken with his foster-mother, Cristiane Neill Dayzell, 
and Mariaoune M'Ingareach, " one of the most notorious 
and rank witches of the country," it was pronounced 
that Hector, Avho was sick, would not recover, unless 

c 



18 THE WITCHES OF SCOTLAND. 

the principal man of his blood should suffer for him. 
This was found to be none other than George Munro, 
of Obisdale, Lady Katherine's eldest son, whose life 
must be given that Hector's might be redeemed. 
George, then, must die ; not by poison but by sorcery ; 
and the first step to be taken was to secure his presence 
by Hector's bedside. " Sewin poistes " or messengers 
did the invalid impatiently send to him ; and when he 
came at last, Hector said never a word to him, after his 
surly " Better now that you have come," in answer to 
his half-brother's unsuspecting " How's a' wi' ye ?" but 
sat for a full hour with his left hand in George's right, 
working the first spell in silence, according to the 
directions of his foster-mother and the witch. That 
night, an hour after midnight, the two women went to 
a " piece of ground lying between two manors," and 
there made a grave of Hector's length, near to the sea- 
flood. A few nights after this — and it was January, 
too — Hector, wrapped in blankets, was carried out of 
his sick bed, and laid in this grave ; he, liis foster- 
mother, and M'Ingareach all silent as death, until 
Cristiane should have gotten speech with their master, 
the devil. The sods Avere then laid over the laird, and 
the witch M'Ingareach sat down by him,- while Cristiane 
Dayzell, with a young boy in her hand, ran the breadth 
of nine rigs or furrows, coming back to the grave, to 
ask the witch " who was her choice." M'Ingareach, 
prompted of course by the devil, answered that '' Mr. 
Hector was her choice to live and his brother George 
to die for him." This ceremony was repeated thrice, 
and then they all returned silently to the house, Mr. 
Hector carried in his blankets as before. The strangest 
thing of all was that Mr. Hector was not killed by the 
ceremony. 



BESSIE EOY. 19 

Hector Miinro was now convinced' that everything 
possible liad been done, and that his half-brother must 
perforce be his sacrifice. In his gratitude he made 
M'Ingareach keeper of his sheep, and so uplifted her 
tliat the common people durst not oppose her for their 
lives. It was the public talk that he favoured her " gif 
she had been liis own wife ;" and once he kept her out 
of the way " at his own charges," when she was cited 
to appear before the court to answer to the crime of 
witchcraft. But in spite of the tremendous evidence 
against, him, Hector got clear off, as his stepmother 
had done before him, and we hear no more of the Fowlis 
follies and the Fowlis crimes. Nothing but their rank and 
the fear of the low people saved them. Slighter crimes 
than theirs, and on more slender evidence, had been 
sufficient cause for condemnation ere now ; and Lady 
Katherine's poisonings, and Hector Munro's incanta- 
tions, would have met with the fate the one at least 
deserved, save for the power and aid of clanship. 



BESSIE EOY. 

The month after this trial, Bessie Koy, nurreych (nurse) 
to the Leslies of Balquhain, was " dilatit " for sorcery 
generally, and specially for being " a common awa- 
taker of women's milk." She took away poor Bessie 
Steel's, when she came to ask alms, and only restored 
it agaia when she was afraid of getting into trouble for 
the fault. She was also accused of having, " by the 
space of tual yeiris syne or thairby," past to the field 
with other women to pluck lint, but instead of follow- 
ing her lawful occupation, she had made " ane compas 
(circle) in the eird, and ane hoiU in the middis thairof ;" 



20 THE WITCHES OF SCOTLAND. 

out of which hole came, first, a great worm which crept 
over the boundary, then a little worm, which crept over 
it also, and last of all another great worm, " quhill could 
nocht pas owre the compas, nor cum out of the hoill, 
but fell doune and deit." Which enchantment or sorcery- 
being interpreted meant, by the first worm, William 
King, who should live ; by the second small worm, the 
unborn babe, of which no one yet knew the coming 
life ; and by the third large worm the gude wyffe her- 
self, who should die as soon as she was delivered. Not- 
withstanding the gravity and circumstantiality of these 
charges, Bessie Koy marvellously escaped the allotted 
doom, and was pronounced innocent. " Quhairvpoune 
the said Bessie askit act and instrument." Two women 
tried the day before, Jonet Grant and Jonet Clark, 
were less fortunate. Charged with laming men and 
women by their devilish arts — whereof was no attempt 
at proof — they were convicted and burnt ; as also was 
Meg Dow, in April of the same year, for the " crewell 
murdreissing of twa young infant bairns," by magic. 

And now we come to a very singular group of trials, 
opened out by that clumsy, superstitious pedant, whose 
name stands accursed for vice and cruel cowardice and 
the utmost selfishness of fear — James YI. of Scotland. 
If anything were wanting to complete one's abhorrence 
of Carr's patron and Ealeigh's murderer— one's con- 
tempt of the upholder of the divine right of kings in 
his own self-adoration as God's vicegerent upon earth — 
it would be his part in the witch delusion of the six- 
teenth century. Whatever of blood-stained folly be- 
longed specially to the Scottish trials of this time — 
and hereafter — owed its original impulse to him ; and 
every groan of the tortured wretches driven to their 
fearful doom, and every tear of the survivors left 



THE DEVIL'S SECKETAEY. 21 

blighted and desolate to drag out their weary days in 
mingled grief and terror, lie on his memory with shame 
and condemnation ineffaceable for all time. 



THE DEVIL'S SECRETAEY.* 

On the 26th of December, 1590, John Fian, alias 
Cuningham (spelt Johanne Feane, alias Cwninghame), 
master of the school at Saltpans, Lothian, and con- 
temptuously recorded as " Secretar and Kegister to the 
Devil," was arraigned for witchcraft and high treason. 
There were twenty counts against him, the least of 
which would have been enough to have lighted up a 
witch-fire on that fatal Castle Hill, for the bravest and 
best in the land. First, he was accused of entering 
into a covenant with Satan, who appeared to him in 
white, as he lay in bed, musing and thinking (" mwsand 
and pansand," says the dittay in its quaint language) 
how he should be revenged on Thomas Trumbill, for 
not having whitewashed his room, according to agree- 
ment. After promising his Satanic majesty allegiance 
and homage, he received his mark, which later was 
found under his tongue, with two pins therein thrust 
up to- their heads. Again, he was found guilty — " fylit'-* 
is the old legal term — of " feigning himself to be sick 
in the said Thomas Trumbill's chamber, where he was 
stricken in great ecstacies and trances, lying by the 
space of two or three hours dead, his spirit taken, and 
suffered himseK to be carried and transported to many 
mountains, as he thought through all the world, accord- 
ing to his depositions." Note, that these depositions 
were made in the midst of fearful torture, and recanted 

* Pitcairn. 



22 THE WITCHES OF SCOTLAND. 

the instant after. Also, lie was found guilty of suffer- 
ing himself to be carried to North Berwick church, 
where, together with many others, he did homage to 
Satan, as he stood in the pulpit, making doubtful 
speeches, saying, " Many come to the fair, and all buy 
not wares ;" and desired him " not to fear, though he 
was grim, for he had many servants who should never 
want, or ail nothing, so long as their hair was on, and 
should never let one tear fall from their eyes so long as 
they served him ;" and he gave them lessons, and said, 
" Spare not to do evil, and to eat and drink and be 
blithe, taking rest and ease, for he should raise them 
up at the latter day gloriously." But the pith of the 
indictment was that he, Fian, and sundry others to be 
spoken of hereafter, entered into a league with Satan 
to wreck the king on his way to Denmark, whither, in 
a fit of clumsy gallantry, he had set out to visit his 
future queen. While he was sailing to Denmark, Fian 
and a whole crew of witches and wizards met Satan at 
sea, and the master, giving an enchanted cat into Eobert 
Grierson's hand, bade him " cast the same into the sea, 
hola," which was accordingly done ; and a pretty cap- 
ful of wind the consequence. Then, when the king 
was returning from Denmark, the devil promised to 
raise a mist which should wreck him on English ground. 
To perform which feat he took something like a foot- 
ball — it seemed to Dr. Fian like a wisp — and cast it 
into the sea, whereupon arose the great mist which 
nearly drove the cumbrous old pedant on to English 
ground, where our strong-fisted queen would have made 
him pay for his footing in a manner not quite congenial 
to his tastes. But, being a Man of God, none of these 
charms and deviMes prevailed against him. A further 
count was, that once again he consorted with Satan and 



THE DEVIL'S SECRETARY. 23 

his crew, still in Xortli Berwick church, where they 
paced round the church wider shins (\A'ider scheins ?), 
that is, contrary to the way of the sun. Fian blew into 
the lock — a favourite trick of his — to open the door, 
and blew in the lights which burned blue, and were 
like big black candles held in an old man's hand round 
about the pulpit. Here Satan as a " mekill blak man, 
with ane blak baird stikand out lyke ane gettis (goat's) 
baird; and ane hie ribbit neise, falland doun scharp 
lyke the beik of ane halk ; with ane lang rumpill (tail) ; 
cled in ane blak tatie goune, and ane ewill favorit scull 
bonnett on his heid ; haifand ane blak buik in his hand," 
preached to them, commanding them to be good servants 
to him, and he would be a good master to them, and 
never let them want. But he made them all very 
angry by calling Robert Grierson by his Christian name. 
He ought to have been called " Eo' the Comptroller, 
or Eob the Eower." This slip of the master's displeased 
them sorely, and they ran •' hirdie gmlie " in great ex- 
citement, for it was against all etiquette to be named 
by their earthly names ; indeed, they always received 
new names when the devil gave them then- infernal 
christening, and they made themselves over to liim and 
denied their holy baptism. It was at this meeting that 
John Fian was specially accused of rifling the graves of 
the dead, and dismembering theu' bodies for charms. 
And many other things did this Secretar and Eegister 
to the devil. Once, at the house of David Seaton's 
mother, he breathed into the hand of a woman sitting 
by the fire, and opened a lock at the other end of the 
kitchen. Once he raised up fom^ candles on his horse's 
two ears, and a fifth on the staff which a man riding 
with him carried in his hand. These magic candles 
gave as much light as the sun at noonday, and the man 



24 THE WITCHES OF SCOTLAND. 

was so terrified that he fell dead on his own threshold. 
He sent an evil spirit, who tormented a man for twenty 
weeks ; and he was seen to chase a cat, and in the chase 
to be carried so high over a hedge that he could not 
touch her head. The dittay says he flew through the 
air — a not infrequent mode of progression with such 
people. When asked why he hunted the cat, he said 
that Satan had need of her, and that he wanted all the 
cats he could lay hands on, to cast into the sea, and 
cause storms and shipwrecks. He was further accused 
of endeavouring to bewitch a young maiden by his 
devilish cantrips and horrid charms ; but, by a wile of 
the girl's mother, up to men's arts, he practised on a 
heifer's hairs instead of the girl's, and the result was 
that a luckless young cow went lowing after him every- 
where — even into his school-room — rubbing herself 
against him, and exhibiting all the languish and desire 
of a love-sick young lady. A curious old plate repre- 
sents John Fian and the heifer in grotesque attitudes ; 
the heifer with large, drooping, amorous eyes, intensely 
ridiculous — the schoolmaster with his magic wand 
drawing circles in the sand. These, with divers smaller 
charges, such as casting horoscopes, and wearing mode- 
wart's (mole's) feet upon him, amounting in all to 
twenty counts, formed the sum of the indictment against 
him. He was put to the torture. First, his head was 
" thrawed with a rope " for about an hour, but still he 
would not confess ; then they tried fair words and 
coaxed him, but with no better success ; and then they 
put him to the " most severe and cruell pains in the 
worlde," namely, the boots, till his legs were com- 
pletely crushed, and the blood and marrow spouted out. 
After the third stroke he became speechless ; and they, 
supposing it to be the devil's mark which kept him 



THE DEVIL»S SECKETAKY. 25 

silent, searched for that mark, that by its discovery the 
spell might be broken. So they found it, as stated 
before, under his tongue, with two charmed pins stuck 
up to their heads therein. When they were drawn out — 
that is, after some further torture — he confessed anything 
which it pleased his tormentors to demand of him, 
saying how, just now, the devil had been to him all in 
black, but with a white wand in his hand ; and how, on 
his, Fian's, renouncing him, he had brake his wand, and 
disappeared. The next day he recanted this confession. 
He was then somewhat restored to himself, and had 
mastered the weakness of his agony. Whereupon it was 
assumed that the devil had visited him through the 
night, and had marked him afresh. They searched him 
— pulling off every nail with a turkas, or smith's pincers, 
and then thrusting in needles up to their heads ; but 
finding nothing more satanic than blood and nerves, 
they put him to worse tortures, as a revenge. He made 
no other relapse, but remained constant now to the end ; 
bearing his grievous pains with patience and fortitude, 
and dying as a brave man always knows how to die, 
whatever the occasion. Finding that nothing more 
could be made of him, they mercifully came to an end. 
He was strangled and burnt *' in the Castle Hill of 
Edinbrough, on a Saterdaie, in the ende of Januarie last 
past 1591 ;" ending a may be loose and not over-heroic 
life in a manner worthy of the most glorious martyr of 
history. John Fian, schoolmaster of Saltpans, with no 
great idea to support him, and no admiring friends to 
cheer him on, bore himself as nobly as any hero of them 
all, and vindicated the honour of manhood and natural 
strength in a way that exalts our common human nature 
into something godlike and divine. 



26 THE WITCHES OF SCOTLAND. 



THE GKACE WIFE OF KEITH AND HER CUMMEES.* 

Fian was tlie first victim in the grand battue offered 
now to the royal witchfinder; others were to follow, 
the manner of whose discovery was singular enough. 
Deputy Bailie David Seaton of Tranent, had a half- 
crazed servant-girl, one Geillis Duncan, whose conduct 
in suddenly taking " in hand to helpe all such as were 
troubled or grieved with anie kinde of sicknes or in- 
firmitie," excited the righteous suspicions of her master. 
To make sure he tortured her, without trial, judge, or 
jury ; first, by the " pillie-mnks " or thumbscrews, and 
then by " thrawing," — wrenching, or binding her head 
with a rope — an intensely agonizing process, and one 
that generally comes in as part of the service of justice 
done to witch and wizard. Not confessing, even under 
these persuasions, she was " searched," and the mark 
was found on her thi^oat : whereupon she at once con- 
fessed ; accusing, among others, the defunct John Fian, 
or Cuningham, Agnes Sampson at Haddington, "the 
eldest witch of them all," Agnes Tompson of Edinbm-gh, 
and Euphemia Macalzean, daughter of Lord Cliftonhall, 
one of the senators of the College of Justice. Agnes 
Sampson's trial came first. She was a grave, matron- 
Kke, well-educated woman, " of a rank and comprehen- 
sion above the vulgar, grave and settled in her answers, 
which were to some purpose," and altogether a woman 
of mark and character. She was commonly called the 
" grace wyff " or " wise wyff " of Keith ; and, doubtless, 
her superior reputation brought on her the fateful 
notice of the half-crazed girl ; also it procured her the 
doubtful honour of being carried to Holyrood, there to 
be examined by the king himself. At first she quietly 

* Pitcairn. 



THE GEACE WIFE OF KEITH. 27 

and firmly denied all that she was charged mth, but 
after having been fastened to the witches' bridle,* kept 
without sleep, her head shaved and thrawn with a rope, 
searched, and pricked, she, too, confessed whatever 
blasphemous nonsense her accusers chose to charge her 
mth, to the wondrous edification of her kingly inqui- 
sitor. She said that she and two hundred other witches 
went to sea on All-Halloween, in riddles or sieves, 
making merry and drinking by the way: that they 
landed at North Berwick chm^ch, where, taking hands, 
they danced around, saying — 

" Commer goe ye before ! commer goe ye ! 
Gif ye will not goe before, commer let me !" 

Here they met the devil, like a mickle black man, as 
John Fian had said, and he marked her on the right 
knee ; and this was the time when he made them all so 
angry by calling Eobert Grierson by his right name, 
instead of Eob the Eower, or Eo' the Comptroller. 
When they rifled the graves, as Fian had said, she got 
two joints, a winding-sheet, and an enchanted ring for 
love-charms. She also said that Geillis Duncan, the 
informer, went before them, playing on the Jew's harp, 
and the dance she played was Gyllatripes ; which so de- 
lighted gracious Majesty, greedy of infernal news, that 
he sent on the instant to GeiUis, to play the same tune 
before him ; which she did " to his great pleasure and 
amazement." Furthermore, Agues Sampson confessed 

* An iron instrument so constructed, that by means of a hoop which 
passed over the head, a piece of iron having four prongs or points, was 
forcibly thrust into the mouth, two of these being directed to the 
tongue and palate, the others pointing outwards to each cheek. This 
infernal machine was secured by a padlock. At the back of the collar 
was fixed a ring, by which to attach to a staple in the wall of her cell. 
— Fitcairns ' Scottish Criminal Trials. ' 



28 THE WITCHES OF SCOTLAND. 

that, on asking Satan why he hated King James, and 
so greatly wished to destroy him, the foul fiend an- 
swered : " Because he is the greatest enemy I have ;" 
adding, that he was "un homme de Dieu," and that 
Satan had no power against him. A pretty piece of 
flattery, but availing the poor wise wife nothing as time 
went on. Her indictment was very heavy ; fifty-three 
counts in all ; for the most part relating to the curing of 
disease by charm and incantation, and to foreknowledge 
of sickness or death. Thus, she took on herself the 
sickness of Kobert Kerse in Dalkeith, then cast it back, 
by mistake, on Alexander Douglas, intending it for a cat 
or a dog : and she put a powder containing dead men's 
bones under the pillow of Euphemia Macalzean, when 
in the pains of childbirth, and so got her safely through. 
As she went on, and grew more thoroughly weakened in 
mind and body, she owned to still more monstrous 
things. Item, to having a familiar, in shape of a dog 
by name Elva, whom she called to her by " Hola ! 
master !" and conjured away " by the law he lived on." 
This dog or devil once came so near to her that she was 
" fleyt," but she charged him by the law he lived on to 
come no nearer to her, but to answer her honestly — 
" Should old Lady Edmistoune live ?" " Her days were 
gane," said Elva; "and where were the daughters?" 
" They said they would be there," said Agnes. He 
answered, one of them should be in peril, and that he 
should have one of them. "It sould nocht be sa," 
cried the wise wife ; so he growled and went back into 
the well. Another time she brought him forth out of 
the well to show to Lady Edmistoune's daughters, and 
he frightened them half to death, and would have de- 
voured one of them had not Agues and the rest gotten 
a grip of her and drawn her back. She sent a letter to 



THE GKACE WIFE OF KEITH. 29 

/ Marian Leiichope, to raise a wind that should prevent 
/ the queen from coming ; and she caused a ship, * The 
Grace of God,' to perish — the devil going before, while 
she and the rest sailed over in a flat boat, entered un- 
seen, ate of the best, and swamped the vessel afterwards. 
For helping her in this nefarious deed, she gave twenty- 
shillings to Grey Meill, " ane auld, sely, pure plowman," 
who usually kept the door at the witches' conventions, 
and who had attended her in this shipwreck adventure. 
Then, she was one of the foremost and most active in 
' the celebrated storm-raising for the destruction, or at 
least the damage of the king on his return from Den- 
mark; giving some curious particulars in addition to 
what we have already had in Fian's indictment ; as, that 
she and her sister witches baptized the cat by which 
they raised the storm, by putting it, with various cere- 
monies, thrice through the chimney crook. " Fyrst twa 
of thame held ane fingar, in the ane syd of the chimnay 
cruik, and ane vther held ane vther fingar in the vther 
syd, the twa nebbis of the fingaris meting togidder; 
than they patt the catt thiyis throw the linkis of the 
cruik, and passit it thryis vnder the chimnay ;" after- 
wards they knit four dead men's joints to the four feet of 
the cat, and cast it into the sea, ready now to work any 
amount of mischief that Satan might command. Then 
she made a " picture," or clay image, of Mr. John Mos- 
crop, father-in-law to Euphemia Macalzean, to destroy 
him, at the said Euphemia's desire. She was also at all 
the famous North Berwick meetings, where Dr. Fian 
was secretary, registrar, and lock-opener; where they 
were baptized of the fiend, and received formally into 
his congregation ; where he preached to them as a great 
black man; and where they rifled graves and meted 
out the dead among them. She also confessed to taking 



30 THE WITCHES OF SCOTLAND. 

a black toad, and hanging him up by his heels, collect- 
ing all his venom in an oyster shell for three days, and 
she told the king that it was then she wanted liis fouled 
linen, when she would have enchanted him to death — 
but she never got it. She had two Pater Xosters, the 
white and the black. The wliite ran thus : — 

" White Pater Xoster, 
Grod was my Foster, 
He fostered me, 
Under the Book of Palm Tree. 
Saint ^Michael was my Dame, 
He was born at Bethlehem, 
He was made of flesh and blood, 
God send me my right food : 
My right food and dyne two 
That I may to yon kirk go, 
To read upon yon sweet book. 
Which the mighty God of Heaven shoop. 
Open, open. Heaven's yaits, 
Stick, stick. Hell's yaits. 
All Saints be the better, 
That hear the white prayer Pater Xoster." 

There was no harm in this doggerel, nor yet much 
good ; little of blessing, if less of banning ; nor was the 
Black more definite. It was shorter, which ought to 
have ranked as a merit : — 

Black Pater Xoster. 
" Four newks in this house, for holy angels, 
A post in the midst, that 's Christ Jesus, 
Lucas, Marcus, Matthew, Joannes, 
God be into this house and all that belongs us." 

To "sain" or charm her bed she used to say, — 

" Matthew, Mark, Luke, and J ohn 
The bed be blest that I ly on." 

And when the butter was slow in coming, it was enough 

if she chanted slowly — 



THE GRACE WIFE OF KEITH. 31 

" Come, butter, come ! 
Come, butter, come ! 
Peter stands at the gate. 
Waiting for a buttered cake, 
Come, butter, come," 

said with faith and miction, she was sure to have at once 
a lucky chui-n-full. 

These queer bits of half-papistical, half-nonsensical 
doggerel were considered tremendous sins in those days, 
and the use of them was quite sufficient to bring any 
one to the scaffold ; as their application would, for a 
certainty, destroy health, and gear, and life, if it were 
so willed. And for all these crimes — storm-raising, cat- 
baptizing, and the rest — Agnes Sampson, the grave, 
matronlike, well-educated grace wife of Keith, was bound 
to a stake, strangled, and burnt on the Castle Hill, with 
no one to seek to save her, and no one to bid her weary 
soul God-speed ! 

Barbara N'apier, wife to a burgess of Edinburgh, and 
sister-in-law to the Laird of Carschoggill, was then 
seized — accused of consorting with Agnes Simpson, 
and consulting with Eichard Grahame, a notorious 
necromancer, to whom she gave " 3 ells of bombezie for 
his paynes," all that she might gain the love and gifts 
of Dame Jeane Lyon, Lady Angus ; also of haying pro- 
cured the witch's help to keep the said Dame Jeane 
'*fra wometing quhen she was in bredin of barne." 
She was accused of other and more malicious things ; 
but acquitted of these : indeed the " assisa " which tried 
her was contumacious and humane, and pronounced no 
doom ; whereon King James wrote a letter demanding 
that she be strangled, then burnt at the stake, and all 
her goods escheated to himself. But Barbara pleaded 
that she was with child ; so her execution was delayed 
until she was delivered, when " nobody insisting in the 



32 THE WITCHES OF SCOTLAND. 

persute of her, she was set at libertie." The con- 
tumacious majority was tried for " wilful error on assize 
— acquitting a witch," but got off with more luck than 
usual.* 

Euphemia Macalzean,t or as we should say, Maclean, 
was even higher game. She was the daughter of Lord 
Cliftonhall, and wife of Patrick Moscrop, a man of 
wealth and standing ; a firm, passionate, heroic woman, 
whom no tortures could weaken into confession, no 
threats terrify into submission. She fought her way, 
inch by inch, but she was " convict" at last, and con- 
demned to be burnt alive : the severest sentence ever 
pronounced against a witch. In general they were 
"wirreit" or strangled before being burnt. There is 
good reason to believe that her witchcraft was made 
merely the pretence, while her political predilections, 
her friendship for the Earl of Bothwell, and her Catho- 
lic religion, were the real grounds of the king's enmity 
to her, and the causes of the severity with which she 
was treated. Her indictment contains the ordinary list 
of witch-crimes, diversified with the additional charge 
of bewitching a certain young Joseph Douglas, whose 
love she craved and found impossible to obtain, or 
rather, to retain. She was accused of giving him, for 
unlawful purposes, "ane craig cheinzie (neck chain), 
twa belt cheinzies, ane ring, ane emiraut," and other 
jewels ; trying also to prevent his marriage with Marie 
Sandilands, and making Agues Simpson get back the 
jewels, when her spells had failed. The young wife 
whom Douglas married, and the two children she bore 
him, also came in for part of her alleged maleficent 

* Fountainhall says that she was convict and burnt ; but is this not a 
mistake ? Pitcairn gives the actual trial, and King James's angry letter 
against the contumacious assisa. 

t Pitcairn. 



THE GRACE WIFE OF KEITH. 83 

enchantments. She "did the barnes to death," and 
struck the wife with deadly sickness. She was also 
accused of casting her own childbirth pains, once on a 
dog, and once on the " wantoune cat ;" whereupon the 
poor beasts ran distractedly out of the house, as well 
they might, and were never seen again. She managed 
this marvellous piece of sleight-of-hand by getting a 
bored stone from Agnes Sampson, and rolling "en- 
chanted mwildis " — earth from dead men's graves — in 
]ier hair. Another time she got her husband's shu't, 
and caused it to be " woumplit '■* (folded up) and put 
under her bolster, whereby she sought to throw her 
labour pains upon him, but without effect ; as is not to 
be wondered at. She bewitched John M'Gillie's wife 
by sending her the vision of, a naked man, with only 
a white sheet about him ; and Jonett Aitcheson saw 
him Avith the sleeves of his shirt " vpoune leggis, and 
taile about his heid." She was also accused of en- 
deavouring to poison her husband ; and it was manifest 
that their union was not happy — he being for the most 
part away from home, and she perhaps thinking of the 
other husband promised her, Archibald Ruthven ; which 
promise, broken and set aside, had made such a slander 
and scandal of her marriage with Patrick Moscrop. 
And it was proved — or what went for proof in those 
days — that Agnes Sampson, the wise wife, had made a 
clay image of John Moscrop, the father-in-law, who 
should thereupon have pined away and died, according 
to the law of these enchantments, but, failing in this 
obedience, lived instead, to the grief and confusion of 
his daughter-in-law. All these crimes, and others like 
unto them, were quite sufficient legal causes of death ; 
and James could gratify his superstitious fears and 
political animosity at the same time, while Euphemia 

D 



34 THE WITCHES OF SCOTLAND. 

Maclean — the fine, brave, handsome Euphemia — writhed 
in agony at the stake to which she was bound when burned 
alive in the flames: "brunt in assis quick to the deid," 
says the Record — the severest sentence ever passed on 
a witch. This murder was done on the 25th July, 1591. 
" The last of Februarie, 1592, Eichard Grahame wes 
brant at y® Cross of Edinburghe for vitchcrafte and 
sorcery," says succinctly Eobert Birrel, " burges of Edin- 
burghe," in his " Diarey containing divers Passages 
of Staite and uthers memorable Accidents, from y® 
1532 zeir of our Redemption, till y^ beginning of the 
zeir 1605." " And in 1593, Katherine Muirhead was 
brunt for vitchcrafte, quha confest sundrie poynts yrof." 
Eichard Graham was the " Rychie Graham, ane necro- 
mancer," consulted by Ba;:'bara Napier ; the same who 
gave the Earl of Bothwell some drug to make the 
king's majesty "lyke weill of him," if he could but 
touch king's majesty on the face therewith; it was 
he also who raised the devil for Sir Lewis Ballantyne, 
in his own yard in the Canongate, whereby Sir Lewis 
was so terrified that he took sickness and died. Even 
in the presence of the king himself, Eychie boasted 
that " he had a familiar spirit which showed him many 
things;" but which somehow forgot to show him the 
stake and the rope and the faggot, which yet were the 
bold necromancer's end, little as the poor cozening 
wretch merited such an awful doom.. 



THE TWO ALISONS. 

June, 1596, had nearly seen a nobler victim than 
those usually accorded. John Stuart, Master of Orkney, 
and brother of the Earl, " was dilatit of consulting with 



THE TWO ALISONS. 



35 



umquhile Margaret Balfour, ane wicli, for the destruc- 
tionne of Patrik Erll of Orkney, be poysoning." In 
tlie dittay she is called " Alysoun Balfour, ane knawin 
notorious wieh." Alisoun, after being kept forty-eight 
hours in the " caschiclawis "* — her husband, an old 
man of eighty-one, her son, and her .young daughter, all 
being in ward beside her, and tortured — was induced to 
confess. She could not see the old man with the Lang 
Irons of fifty stone weight laid upon him ; her son in the 
boots, with fifty-seven strokes ; and her little daughter, 
aged seven, with the thumbscrews upon her tender 
hands, and not seek to gain their remission by any 
confession that could be made. But when the torture 
was removed from them and her, she recanted in one of 
the most moving and pathetic speeches on record — 
availing her little then, poor soul I for she was burnt on 
the Castle EQll, December 16th, 1594, and her con- 
fession treasured up to be used as future evidence 
against John Stuart. Thomas Palpla, a servant, was 
also implicated ; but as he had been kept eleven days 
and nights in the caschiclaws (or caspie-claws) ; twice 
in the day for fourteen hours " callit in the buitis ;" 
stripped naked and scourged with "ropes in sic soirt 
that they left nather flesch nor hyde vpoun him ;" and, 
as he recanted so soon as the torture was removed, his 
confession went for but little. So John, Master of 
Orkney, was let off, when perhaps he had been the only 
guilty one of the three. 

In October-f- of the same year (1596), Alesoun Jollie, 



* Dr. Jamieson conjectures the word to signify " warm hose." After 
encircling the leg with an iron framework, it was put into a moveable 
furnace or chauffer, and during the progress of heating the iron, the 
intended questions were successively put. — Note in Pitcairn's ^Scottish 
Criminal Trials.' 

t Pitcairn's ' Scottish Criminal Trials.' 



36 THE WITCHES OF SCOTLAND. 

spoils to Robert Eae, in Fala, was " dilatit of airt and 
pairt " in the death of Isobell Hepburn, of Fala : and 
the next month, November, Christian Stewart, in Nok- 
waher, Avas strangled and burnt for the slaughter of 
umquhile Patrick Euthven, by taking ane black clout 
from Isobell Stewart, wherewith to work her fatal cliarm. 
It does not appear that she did anything more heinous 
than borrow a black cloth from Isobell, which might or 
might not have been left in Ruthyen's house ; but sus- 
picion was as good as evidence in those days, and black 
clouts were dangerous things to deal with when women 
had the reputation of witches. So poor Christian 
Stewart was strangled and burnt, and her soul released 
from its troubles by a rougher road, and a shorter, 
than what Nature would have taken if left to herself, 
" Strange that while all these dismal affairs were going 
on at Edinburgh, Shakspeare was beginning to write 
his plays, and Bacon to prepare his essays. Ramus 
had by this time shaken the Aristotelian philosophy, 
and Luther had broken the papal tyranny."* Truly 
humanity walks by slow marches, and by painful stum- 
bling through thorny places ! 



THE TROUBLES OF ABERDEEN.f 

Aberdeen was not behind her elder sister. One man 
and twenty-three women were burned in one year 
alone for the crime of witchcraft and magic ; and the 
Records of the Dean of Guild faithfully detail the 
expenses which the town was put to in the process. 

* Chambers' ' Domestic Annals of Scotland.' 

t • Antiquarian Eesearches ol Aberdeen, by Gavin Turriff : Spalding 
Club Miscellany. Cliambers' 'Domestic Anuals,' to tiie end of the 
Aberdeen trials. 



THE TROUBLES OF ABERDEEN^. 



37 



On the 23rd of February, 1597, Tliomas Leyis cost 
them two pounds thirteen shillings and fourpence, for 
'• peattis, tar barrelis, fir, and coallis, to burn the said 
Thomas, and to Jon Justice for his fie in executing 
him ;" but Jonet Wischart (his mother), and Isobel 
Cocker, cost eleven pounds ten shillings for their joint 
cremation ; with ten shillings added to the account for 
"training of Monteithe (another witch of the same 
gang) through the streits. of the tow^n in ane cart, quha 
hangit herself in prison, and eirding (burying) her." 
The dittay against these several persons set forth 
various crimes. Janet Wischart, who was an old 
woman notorious for her evil eye, was convicted. 
amongst other things, of having " in the moneth of 
Aprile or thau'by, in anno nyntie ane yeiris, being the 
first moneth in the raith (the first quarter) at the 
gi'eiking" (breaking) of the day, cast her cantrips in 
Alexander Thomson's way, so that one half of the day 
his body was '^ rossin " (burned or roasted) as if in an 
oven, wdth an extreme burning drought, and the other 
half melting away with a cold sweat. Upon Andrew 
Webster — who had put a linen towel round her throat, 
half choking her, and to whom she said angrily, " Quhat 
wirreys thow me ? thow salt lie : I sail give breid to my 
bairnis this towmound, and thou sail nocht byd ane 
moneth with thin, to gif tham breid" — she had laid 
such sore cantrips, that he died as she predicted : which 
was a cruel and foul murder in the eyes of the law, 
forbye the sin of witchcraft. But she had other victims 
as w^ell. James Low, a stabler, refused to lend her his 
kiln and barn, so he took a " dwining " illness in conse- 
quence, " melting away like ane burning candle till he 
died." His wife and only son died too, and his "haill 
geir, surmounting three thousand pounds, are alto- 



38 THE WITCHES OF SCOTLAND. 

getlier wrackit and away." Beside this evidence there 
was his own testimony availing ; for he had often said 
on his death-bed, that if he had lent Jonet what she 
had demanded, he would never have suffered loss. She 
had also once brought down a dozen fowls off a roost, 
dead at her feet ; and had ruined a woman and her 
husband, by bidding them take nine grains or ears of 
wheat, and a bit of rowan tree, and put them in the 
four corners of the house — for all the mischance that 
followed after was due to this unholy charm ; and once 
she raised a serviceable wind in a dead calm, by putting 
a piece of live coal at two doors, whereby she was 
enabled to winnow some wheat for herself, when all the 
neighbom'S were standing idle for want of wind ; and 
she bewitched cows, so that they gave poison instead of 
milk ; and oxen, so that they became furious under the 
touch of any one but herself ; and she sent cats to sit on 
honest folks' breasts, and give them evil dreams and 
the horrors ; and furthermore, she was said to have 
gone to the gallows in the Links, and to have dis- 
membered the dead body hanging there, for charms; 
and twenty-two years ago she was proved to have been 
found sitting in a field of corn before sunrising, peeling 
blades, and finding that it would be "ane dear year," 
for the blade grew widershins, and it was only when it 
grew sungates (from east to west) that it would be a 
full harvest and cheap bread for the poor ; and once her 
daughter-in-law had found her, and another hag, sitting 
stark by her fireside, the one mounted on the shoulders 
of the other, working charms for her health and well- 
being. So she cost the town of Aberdeen the half of 
eleven pounds odd shillings, for the most effectual man- 
ner of carrying out her sentence, which was, that she 
« be brint to the deid." 



THE TROUBLES OF ABERDEEN. 



39 



Her son Thomas Levis was not so foi-tunate as lier 
husband and daughters : " qwik gangand devills " were 
these ; for they escaped the flames this time, and Avere 
banished instead. But Thomas was less lucky. He was 
dilatit of being a common witch and sorcerer, and the 
partner of all his mother's evil deeds. One of his worst 
crimes was having danced round the market-cross of 
Aberdeen, he and a number of witches and sorcerers — 
the devil leading ; " in the quhilk dans, thow, Thomas, 
was foremost, and led the ring, and dang the said 
Katherine Mitchell (another of the accused) because 
scho spillit your dans, and ran nocht so fast about as the 
rest." Thomas had a lover too, faitliless Elspet Keid, 
and she, turning against him, as has been the manner 
of lovers through all time, gave tremendous evidence 
in his disfavoui'. She said that he had once offered to 
take her to Murrayland, and there marry her ; a man 
at the foot of a certain mountain being sure to rise at 
his bidding, and supply them with all they wanted; 
and when he was confined in the church-house, she 
came and whispered to him through the window, and 
the man in charge of Thomas swore that she said she 
had been meeting with the devil according to his 
orders, and that when she sained herself he had '- vaniest 
away with ane rwmleng (rumbling)." In the morning, 
too, before the old mother's conviction, " ane ewill 
spreit in lyiknes of ane pyit (magpie)," went and struck 
the youngest sister in her face, and would have picked 
out her eyes, but that the neighbours to the fore dang 
the foul thief out of the room ; and again, on the day 
after conviction, and before execution, the devil came 
again as ane kae (crow), and would have destroyed the 
youngest sister entirely had he not been prevented: 
which two visitations were somehow hinged on to 



40 THE WITCHES OF SCOTLAND. 

Thomas, and included in the list of crimes for which he 
was adjudged worthy of death. 

Helen Fraser, of the same " coven," was a most dan- 
gerous witch. She had the power to make men transfer 
their affections, no matter how good and wholesome the 
wife deserted : — and she never spared her power. By her 
charms she caused Andrew Tullideff to leave off loving 
his lawful wife and take to Margaret Neilson instead : 
so that " he could never he reconceillit with his wife, or 
remove his affection frae the said harlot ;" and she made 
Eobert Merchant fall away from the duty owing to his 
wife, Christian White, and transfer himself and his love 
to a certain widow, Isobel Bruce, for whom he once went 
to sow corn, and fell so madly in love that he could never 
quit the house or the widow's side again ; " whiJk thing 
the country supposed to be brought about by the un- 
lawful travelling of the said Helen ; " and was further 
testified by Robert himself,'' says Chambers significantly. 
Helen Fraser was therefore burnt ; and it is to be 
hoped that the men returned to their lawful mates. 

Isobel Cockie, who was burnt in company with Thomas 
Lee's mother, old Jonet, meddled chiefly with cows and 
butter. She could forespeak them so that they should 
give poison instead of milk, and the cream she had once 
overlooked was never fit for the " yirning." Her land- 
lord once offended her by mending the roof of her 
house while she was from home, and Isobel, who did 
not choose that her things should be pulled about in 
her absence, and perhaps some of her cantrips disco- 
vered, " glowrit up at him, and said, * I sail gar thee 
forthink it that thow hast tirrit my hows, I being frae 
hame.' " Whereupon Alexander Anderson went home 
sick and speechless, and gat no relief until Isobel gave 
him " droggis," when his speech and health returned 



THE TROUBLES OF ABERDEEN. 41 

as of old. Isobel liad been tlie dancer immediately 
after Thomas Lees at the Fish Cross, " and because the 
dewill playit not so melodiously and well as thow cravit, 
thow took his instrument out of his mouth, tlien tuik him 
on the chafts (chops) therewith, and playit thyself theiron 
to the haill company." What further evidence could 
possibly be required to prove that Isobel Cockie was a 
witch, and one that " might not be suffered to live " ? 

Other trials did Aberdeen entertain that year on this 
same wise and Christian count. There was that of 
Andrew Man, a poor old fellow specially patronized by 
the Queen of Fairy who sixty years ago had come to 
his mother's house, where she was delivered of a bairn 
just like an ordinary woman, and no devil or Queen of 
Elfin at all. Andrew was then but a boy, but he remem- 
bered' it all well, and how he carried water for her, and 
was promised by her that he should know all things, and 
should be able to cure all sorts of sickness except the 
" stand deid ;" and that he should be "well entertainit," 
but should seek his meat ere he died, as Thomas Khymer 
had done in years long past. Twenty-eight years after 
this the queen came again, and caused one of his cattle 
to die on a hillock called the Elf-hillock, but promised to 
do him good afterwards ; and it was then that their guilty 
albeit poetic and loving intercourse began. Andrew was 
told in his dittay that he could cure " the falling sickness, 
the bairn-bed, and all other sorts of sickness that ever 
fell to man or beast, except the stand-deid, by baptizing 
them, reabling them in the auld corunschbald,* and 
striking of the giidis on the face, with ane foot in thy 
hand, and by saying their words, ' Gif thou wilt live, 
live ; and gif thow wilt die, die,' with sundry other 
orisons, sic as Sanct John and the three silly brethren, 
* Apparently untranslateable. 



42 THE WITCHES OF SCOTLAND. 

whilk tliow canst say when thow please, and by giving 
of black wool and salt as a remeid for all diseases, and 
for causing a man prosper, so that his blude should 
never be drawn." Once, Andrew Man, by putting a 
patient nine times through a hasp of unwatered yarn, 
and a cat as many times backwards through the same 
hasp, cured the patient by kilHng the cat. This was 
logical, and quite easy to be understood. Andrew's 
devil whom he ajQ&rmed to be an angel, and whose 
name was Christsonday, was raised by saying Bene- 
dicite, and laid again by putting a dog under his arm, 
then casting it into the devil's mouth with the a^vful 
word " Maikpeblis !" " The Queen of Elphen has a grip 
of all the craft," says the dittay, " but Christsonday 
is the gudeman, and has all power under God ; and 
thow kens sundry deid men in their company, and the 
king that died at Flodden, and Thomas Ehymer is 
there." And as the queen had been seen in Andrew's 
company in a rather beautiful and poetic manner, the 
whole affair was settled, and no man's mind was left in 
doubt of the old creature's guilt. For, Andrew was 
told, ^' Upon Eood-day in harvest, in this present year, 
whilk fell on a Wednesday, thow saw Christsonday 
come out of the snaw in the likeness of a staig (young 
male horse), and the Queen of Elphen was there, and 
others with her, riding upon white hackneys." " The 
elves have shapes and claithes like men, and will have 
fair covered tables, and they are but shadows, but are 
starker (stronger) nor men, and they have plapng and 
dancing when they please ; the queen is veiy pleasant, 
and will be auld and young when she pleases; she 
makes any king whom she pleases. . . The elves 
will make thee appear to be in a fair chalmer, and yet 
thow wilt find thvself in a moss on the moor. They 



THE TROUBLES OF ABEEDEEN. 43 

will appear to liave candles, and licht, and swords, 
wliilk Avill be nothing else but dead grass and straes." 
So Andrew's doom was sealed, for all that he denied his 
guilt, and he was convicted and burnt like the rest. 

Marjory Mutch came to her end because, having a 
deadly hatred against William Smith, she bewitched 
his oxen, as they were ploughing, so that they all ran 
" wood " or mad that instant, broke the plough, and two 
of them plunged up over the hills to Deer, and two ran 
up Ithan side, and could never be taken or apprehended 
again. _ She was notorious for bewitching cattle ; and 
that she was a witch, and good for nothing but burning, 
a gentleman proved to the satisfaction of all preseut, 
for he found a soft spot on her which he pricked 
without causing any pain ; a test that ought to have 
been eminently satisfactory and conclusive — but was 
not ; for she was " clenged" — cleansed, or acquitted. 

Ellen Gray, convicted of many of the ordinary crimes 
of witchcraft, did away with all chance of mercy for 
herself when, on being taken, she looked over her 
shoulder, saying, " Is there no mon following me ? " 
and Agnes Wobster was a witch because in a great 
snow she took fire out of a " cauld frosty dyke," and 
carried the same to her house. They were both burnt, 
as they merited. Jonet Leisk cast sickness and disease 
on all she knew, and made whole flocks run ^' wode " 
and furious ; geese too ; but she was " clenged," or 
cleared ; so was Gilbert Fidlar ; but Isobell Kichie, 
Margaret Og, Helen Eogie, and others, were burnt, for 
the satisfaction of offended justice. 

Margaret Clark, too, came to no good end, because 
being sent for by the wife of Mcol Eoss, when in child- 
bed, she gave her ease by casting her pains upon Andrew 
Harper, who fell into such a fury and madness during 



44 THE WITCHES OF SCOTLAIs^D. 

her time of travail, that he could not be holden, and 
only recovered when the gentlewoman was delivered. 
And what did Violet Leys do, but bewitch William Fin 
lay's ship so that she never made one good voyage 
again, all because her husband had been discharged 
therefrom, and Violet the witch was most mightily 
angered? And Isobell Straquhan, too, had she not 
powers banned even in the blessing ? She went one day 
to " Elspet Murray in Woodheid, she being a widow, 
and asked of her if she had a penny to lend her, and 
the said Elspet gave her the penny ; and the said 
Isobell took the penny and bowit (bent) it, and took a 
clout and a piece of red wax, and sewed the clout with 
a thread, the wax and the penny being within the clout, 
and gave it to the said Elspet Murray, commanding her 
to use the said clout to hang about her craig (neck), 
and when she saw the man she loved best, take the 
clout, with the penny and wax, and stroke her face with 
it, and she so doing, would attain into the marriage of 
that man whom she loved." She also made Walter 
Konaldson leave off beating his wife, by sewing certain 
pieces of paper thick Tvdth threads of divers colours, and 
putting them in the barn among the corn, since which 
time Walter left off dinging his poor spouse, and was 
" subdued entirely to her love." So Isobell Straquhan 
made one of the tale of twenty-two unfortunate wretches 
who were executed in Aberdeen that year, for the 
various crimes of witchcraft and sorcery. 

No evidence was too meagre for the witch-hunters ; 
no accusation too absurd; no subterfuge or enormity 
sufficiently transparent to show the truth behind. When 
Margaret Aiken, " the great witch of Balwery,"* went 

* Patrick Anderson's MS. history of Scotland, quoted by Kobert 
Oiiambers, in his * Domestic Annals of Scotland.' 



THE TROUBLES OF ABERDEEX, 



45 



about the country dilating honest women for witches, 
" by the mark between their eyes," it was eyident to 
all but the heated and credulous, such as John Cowper, 
the minister of Glasgow, and others, that she used 
this as a mere means to save time, she herself having 
been tortured into confession, and now seeing no way 
of safety but by complicity and witch-finding. She 
told of one convention held on a hill in Atholl, where 
there were twenty-three hundred witches, and the 
devil amons: them. " She said she knew them all well 
enough, and what mark the devil had given severally 
to every one of them. There was many of them tried 
by swimming in the water, by binding of their two 
thumbs and their great toes together, for being thus 
casten in the water, they floated ay aboon." It was 
not only the malevolent witch that suiiered in this 
wild j:aid made against reason and humanity. The 
doom dealt out to the witch who slew was equally 
allotted to the witch who saved. Yet the mtchologists 
made a difference between the two. 

" Of witches there be two sorts," says Thomas Pick- 
ering, in his ' Discovi'se of the damned Art of Witchcraft,' 
printed 1610, " the had witch and the good ivitch ; for so 
they are commonly called. The had ivitch is he or she 
that hath consulted in league with the Deuill ; to vse 
his helpe for the doing of hurte onely, so as to strike 
and annoy the bodies of men, women, children, and 
cattell, with diseases and with death itselfe ; so likewise 
to raise tempests by sea and by land, &c. This is com- 
monly called the binding vdtch. 

*' The good witch is he or she that by consent in a 
league with the Deuill doth vse his helpe for the doing 
of good onely. This cannot hurt, torment, curse, or kill, 
but onely heale and cure the hurt inflicted vpone men 



46 THE WITCHES OF SCOTLAND. 

or cattell by badde witclies. For as they can doe no 
good but onely hurt ; so this can doe no hurt but good 
onelv. And this is that order which the Deuill hath 
set in his kingdome, appointing to severall persons their 
severall offices and charges. And the Good Witch is 
commonly called the Ynbinding ^Yitch." 

But the good witch, as Pickering calls her, was no 
better off than the bad. Indeed she was held in even 
greater dread, for the black witch hm-t only the body 
and estate, while the white mtch hurt the soul when 
she healed the body ; the healed part never being able 
to say " God healed me." AVherefore it was severed 
from the salvation of the rest, and the wholeness of the 
redemption destroyed. In consequence of this beHef 
we find as severe punishments accorded to the blessing 
as to the banning witches ; and no movement of grati- 
tude was dreamt of towards those who had healed the 
most oppressive diseases, or shown the most humane 
feeling and kindness, if there was a suspicion that the 
power had been got uncannily, or that the drugs had 
more virtue than common. 



-WHITE WITCHES.* 

Thus on November the 12th, 1597, Janet Stewart in the 
Canongate, Christian Levingstone in Leith, Bessie Aiken, 
also of Leith, and Christian Sadler of Blackhouse, were 
brought to trial for no worse crimes than healing and 
helping sundry of their neighbours. Christian Leving- 
stone was " fylit and convict " for abusing (deceiving) 
Thomas Gothray, who went to her complaining that his 
gear went from him, and that he was bewitched ; which 

* Pitcaim. 



WHITE WITCHES. 



47 



she said was true ; promising to help him, and " let him 
see where the witchcraft was laid." So she took him 
down his own stair, and dug a hole with her knife, and 
took out a little bag of black plaid, wherein were some 
grains of wheat, worsted threads of many colours, some 
hair, and nails of men's fingers, affirming that he was 
bewitched by these means, and bidding his wife catch 
them in her apron. If this bag had not been found, 
said Christian, he would have been wrackit both in 
mind and body ; Avhich was a clear case of " abusing,'* 
if you will. This " scho deponit in presens of my Lord 
Justice ypoun the tent day of Julij last past to be of 
yeritie." She also said that her daughter had been 
taken away by fairy folk, and that she had learnt all 
her wise-wife knowledge from her, and as a proof of this 
knowledge, she prophesied that Gothray's wife, then 
" being with barne," should bear a man child ; which 
proved to be true, to the sad strengthening of the 
accusations against her. Another time she and Chris- 
tian Sadler were prayed by Kobert Bailie, mason in 
Haddington, to go and cure his wife. Christian Sadler 
recommended her to take three pints of sweet wort, 
and boil it with a quantity of fresh butter ; which she 
did, and drank it too, but with no good effects of heal- 
ing, as we may suppose. Again, shortly before her 
accusation, she was sent for by Christian Sadler, on 
some other devil's deed ; and together they made An- 
drew Penny cuik a cake baked with the blood of a red 
cock; but he could not eat it. Then they took his 
shirt and dipped it in the well at the back of his house, 
and brought it to him and put it on him, dripping as it 
was, " quhairthrow he maist haif sownit amang their 
hands," giving him to understand that now he would 
be mended, " albeit that it was onlie plane abusione, as 



4S THE WITCHES OF SCOTLAND. 

the event declarit." Not finding the cake of red cock's 
blood or the dripping shirt of great efficacy, Andrew 
went then to Janet Stewart, craving his health at 
her hands " for God's sake ;" but we are not told the 
result. 

Janet Stewart was fylit for going to Bessie Inglis in 
the Kowgate, Bessie being deidlie sick ; when Janet 
took off her " mutche and sark " (cap and shift), washed 
them in south-running water, and put them on her 
again at midnight, wet as they were, saying three 
times, " In the name of the Father, the Son, and the 
Holy Ghost." She also " fyrit," or put a hot iron into 
water, and burnt straw at the four corners of the bed, 
as Michael Clarke, smith, had learnt her; and she 
healed women of the mysterious child-bed disorder 
called w^edonymph, by taking a garland of woodbine 
and putting them through it, afterwards cutting it into 
nine pieces, Avhich she threw into the fire. This charm 
she said she had learnt from Mr. John Damiet, an 
Italian, and a notorious enchanter. And she cured 
sundry persons of the falling-evil by hanging a stone 
about their necks for five nights, which stone she said 
she got from Lady Crawford. 

Christian Sadler was " fylit and convict " for taking 
in hand to heal the young Laird of Bargany, with a salve 
made of quicksilver, which she rubbed into the patient, 
alleging that she learnt it of her father ; but she did 
the same by " unlessum " (unwholesome) means, said 
the dittay, she having no such knowledge as would 
enable her to cure leprosy, which the most expert men 
in medicine are not able to do. Kobert Hunter, too, 
since deceased, having a flaw in his face, she under- 
took to cure with a mixture of quicksilver in a drink. 
She said the flaw was leprosy, but it was nothing of the 



WHITE WITCHES. 



%9 



kind ; and " God knows liow the drink was composed," 
but the gentleman died twelve hours after, " as was 
notourlie confessit of hii*self, and can nocht be denyit, 
quhairby scho was giltie of his death be hir craft ; 
ministering to him vnlessum things, quhairof he deit 
suddenhe." So the four women were convicted and 
condemned, sentenced to be strangled at a stake, then 
burnt, and all their goods forfeit to the crown. Only 
Bessie Aiken got off by reason of her pregnancy ; and 
after having suffered " lang puneischment be famine 
and imprisonment," was finally banished the kingdom 
for life. 

In July, 1602, James Keid suffered for the same 
kind of offences — taking three pennies and a piece of 
" creisch " (grease) from the bag of his master the devill, 
whom he met on Bynnie-crags, and learning from him 
the art of healing by means of silk laces, south-running 
waters, charms, incantations, and other " unlessum " 
means. He cured Sarah Borthwick by his sorcery and 
devilry, bringing her south-running water from the 
" Schriff-breyis-well," and casting a certain quantity of 
salt and wheat about her bed : and he consulted with 
certain for the destruction of David Libbertoune, baxter 
and burges of Edinbui'gh, his spouse, their corn, and 
goods, by taking a piece of raw flesh, and making nine 
nicks in it, then putting part under the mill door and 
part under the stable door ; while, to ruin the land, he 
enchanted stones and cast them on the fields. He 
cured John Crystie of a swelling, by putting three silk 
laces round his leg for ten weeks ; and his deeds be- 
coming notorious and his character lost, he was ad- 
judged worthy of death, and judicially murdered ac- 
cordingly. 

Who was safe, if a half-fed scrofulous woman had 



50 THE WITCHES OF SCOTLAND. 

fancies and the megrims? The first person on whom 
her wild imagination chose to cast the grim shadow of 
witchcraft was surely doomed, however slight the evi- 
dence, or whatever the manifest quality of the disease. 
There was poor Patrick Lowrie, fylit July 23, 1605 — 
what had he done ? Why, he and Jonet Hunter, " ane 
notorious wich," bewitched Bessie Saweris' (Sawyer's) 
her corn, and took all her fisnowne (fushion, foison, 
pith, strength, flavour) from her ; and then he fell foul 
of certain "ky," so that they gave no milk; and he 
had cured the horse of Margaret Guffok, the witch of 
Barnewell, twenty years ago ; and struck Janet Lowrie 
blind; and, as a climax, uncannily helped Elizabeth 
Crawford's bairn in Glasgow, which had been strangely 
sick for the last eight or nine years. And the way in 
which he helped her was thus. He took a cloth off the 
said bairn's face, " saining " it, and crossing the face 
with his hand ; he kept the cloth for eight days, then 
came back and covered her face again with it ; where- 
upon the child slept without moving for two days, and at 
the end of that time Patrick Lowrie wakened her, and 
her eye, which " had been tynt throw disease, was re- 
stored to her, and in ^yb days she was cured and mended." 
He was also fylit of having met the devil on the com- 
mon waste at Sandhills, in Kyle, when a number of 
men and women were there ; and for having enter- 
tained him under the form of a woman, one Helen 
M'Brune (this was a succubus) ; also of having received 
from him a hair belt, at one end of which was the 
similitude of " four fingeris and ane thumbe, nocht far 
different from the clawis of the devill;" which belt 
Jonet Hunter had, and it was burnt at her trial ; also 
of having dug up dead bodies, to dismember them for 
his deadly charms ; and also for being " ane cowmone 



THE MISDEEDS OF ISOBEL GRIERSON". 



51 



and notorious sorcerer, warlok, and abuser of tlie 
peopill, be all vnlawfull charms and devillische incan- 
tationes, Yset be him this xxiiij yeir begane." To which 
terrific array was added the testimony of Mr. David 
Mill, who said how, in his own place, he was " brutit 
and commonlie called Pait ye Witch, and that he gat 
his father's malison," and had been spoken of as sure to 
make an ill end. So he did, poor fellow ; for the Lord 
Advocate threatened to prosecute the assize if they 
acquitted him, which insured his effectual condemna- 
tion, and Pate the Witch was burnt with his fellows. 



THE MISDEEDS OF ISOBEL GRIERSON.* 

Two years afterwards, on March the 10th, 1607, 
Isobel Grierson, " spous to John Bull," came into court 
with anything but clean hands. She was accused of 
having visited Adam Clarke and his wife — they lying 
decently in bed, their servant being in the other bed 
beside them — not as an honest woman, but in the form 
of a cat, being accompanied by other cats which made 
a great and fearful noise. Whereat Adam Clarke, his 
wife, and servant were so affriglited they were almost 
mad. At the same time arrived the devil in the shape 
of a black man, and came to the servant girl then stand- 
ing on the floor, and drew her up and down the house 
in a fearful manner, first taking the cm^tche (cap) off 
her head and casting it into the fire, whereby the poor 
woman had a sickness which lasted six weeks. Isobel 
killed William Burnet by casting a cutting of plaid in 
at his door, after which the devil, for the space of half 

* Pitcairn and Chambers. 



62 THE WITCHES OF SCOTLAND. 

a year, perpetually appeared to him as a naked child, 
holding an enchanted picture in his hand, and standing 
before the fire ; but sometimes he appeared as Isobel 
herself, who, when William Burnet called to her by 
name, would vanish away. So she haunted and harried 
him till he* pined away and died. She bewitched Mr. 
Brown, of Prestonpans, by throwing an enchanted 
"tailzie" (cut or piece) of beef at his door, sending 
the devil to distress him for half a year, appearing 
to him herself in the form of an infant bairn, and so 
hardly treating him, that Brown died as Burnet had 
done. Then she bewitched Eobert Peddan, who got 
no good from any remedy, and knew not what ailed 
him, until he suddenly remembered that he and Isobel 
had had a quarrel about nine shillings which he owed 
her and would not pay ; so he went to her and paid 
her, asking humbly for his health again ; which came. 
Eobert Peddan deposed, too, that, being once at his 
house, she wanted her cat, whereupon she opened his 
window^ put out her hand, and drew the cat in : at which 
time was working a brewing of good sound ale, which 
all turned to " gutter dirt." Another time she or her 
spirit went at night to his house and drew Margaret 
Donaldson, his wife, out of her bed, and flung her vio- 
lently against the floor ; whereat the wife was very ill 
and so]-e troubled, and cried out on her. Isobel, hear- 
ing of this, went to the neighbom-s, and said they were 
to bring her and Margaret together again ; which they 
did ; and Margaret had her health for nine or ten days. 
But Meg, not leaving off calling out against her, Isobel 
went to her, " and spak to hir mony devillisch and 
horribill words," saying, " The faggot of hell lycht on 
the, and hell's cauldron may thow seith in ! " So Meg 
was sick again after this ; and as a poor beggarwoman 



BARTIE PATERSOK'S CHAEM. 



53 



coming to the door to ask meat told her she was be- 
witched for that she had the right stamp of it, the case 
grew serious, and Margaret cried out more loudly than 
before. Then Isobel went again to her house with a 
creil on her back, and said passionately, '' Away, theiff ! 
I sail haif thy hairt for bruitting of me sae falslie ;'* 
which so frightened Meg that she took to her bed, and 
Isobel was arrested, tried, convicted, and burnt. 



■ BAETIE PATERSON'S CHARM.* 

That same year James Brown was ill. Bartie 
Paterson went to him, and gave him drinks and salves 
made of green herbs, and bade him " sitt doun on his 
kneis thre seuerall nychtis, and everie nycht, thryse 
nyne tymes, ask his helth at all living wichtis, aboue 
and vnder the earth in the name of Jesus." He gave 
Alexander Clarke a drink of Dow-Loch water — poor 
Alexander Clarke was fond of consulting witches- 
causing him each time he lifted the mug to say, " I 
lift this watter in the name of the Father, Sone, and 
Holy Ghaist, to do guid for their helth for quhom it is 
liftit." And he was able to cast a spell over cattle by 
saying — 

" I charme the for arrow-schot, 
For dor-schot, for wondo-scliot, 
For ey-schot, for tung-schot, 
For lever-scliot, for lung-schot, 
For liert-schot, all the maist, 

In the name of the Father, the Sone, and Haly Ghaist. 
To wend out of fleisch and bane. 
Into stek and stane, 
In the name of the Father, the Sone, and Haly Ghaist. Amen." 

So the law put a stop to his incantations, and he was 

* Pitcairn. 



64 THE WITCHES OF SCOTLAND. 

strangled and burnt, and all his goods escheit to the 
crown. But the crown did not get a very full haul, for 
poor Bartie was scarce removed from beggary. 



BEIOIS TOD AND HER COMPEERS.* 

In 1608, on May the 27th, Beigis Tod in Lang 
ISTydrie came to her fate. She had long been a fre- 
quenter of Sabbaths, and once was reproved by the 
devil for being late, when she answered respectfully, 
" Sir, I could wyn na soner !" Immediately thereafter 
she passed to her own house, took a cat, and put it nine 
times through the chimney work, and then sped to 
Seaton Thome " be north the yet," where the devil 
called Cristiane Tod, her younger sister, and brought 
her out. But Cristiane took a great fright and said, 
" Lord, what wilt thou do with me ?" to whom he an- 
swered, " Tak na feir, for ye sail gang to your sister 
Beigis, to ye rest of hir cumpanie quha are stayand 
vpoun your cuming at the Thorne." Cristiane Tod, 
John Graymeill, Ersche (Irish), Marion, and Margaret 
Dwn, who were of that company that night, had all 
been burnt, so now Beigis had her turn. She fell out 
with Alexander Fairlie, and made his son vanish away 
by continual sweating and burning at his heart, during 
which time Beigis appeared to him nightly in her own 
person, but during the day in the similitude of a dog, 
and put him almost out of his wits. Alexander went to 
her to be reconciled, and asked her to take the sickness 
off his son, which at first she refused, but afterwards 
consenting, she went and healed the youth, a short time 
before she was arrested — to be burnt. Two years after 

* Pitcairn. 



BEIGIS TOD AND HER COMPEERS. 55 

this Grissel Gairdner was burnt for casting sickness upon 
people ; and in 1613 Kobert Erskine and liis three 
sisters were executed — he was beheaded — for poison- 
ing and treasonable murder against his two nephews. 
But before this, in 1608, the Earl of Mar brought 
word to the Privy Council that some women taken at 
Broughton or Breichin, accused of witchcraft, and being 
put to " ane assize and convict albeit they persevered 
constant in their deniall to the end, yet they wes burnet 
quick after sic ane crewell maner that sum of thame 
deit in dispair, renunceand and blasphemand, and 
vtheris, half brunt, brak out of the fyre and wes cassin 
quick into it agaiae, quhill they war brunt to the deid." 
Even this horrible scene does not seem to have had 
any effect in humanizing men's hearts, or opening their 
eyes to the infamy into which their superstition dragged 
them ; for still the witch trials went on, and the young 
and the old, and the beautiful and the unlovely, and 
the loved and the loveless, were equally victims, cast 
without pity or remorse to their frightful doom. 

Sixteen hundred and sixteen was a fruitful year 
for the witch-finders. There was Jonka Dyneis of 
Shetland,* who, offended with one Olave, fell out in 
most vile cursings and blasphemous exclamations, saying 
that within a few days his bones should be " raiking " 
about the banks : and as she predicted so did it turn out 
— Olave perishing by her sorcery and enchantments. 
And not content with this, she cursed the other son of 
the poor widowed mother, and in fourteen days he also 
died, to Jonka's own undoing when the Shetlanders 
would bear her iniquities no longer. And there was 
Katherine Jonesdochter, also of Shetland, who cruelly 
transferred her husband's natural infirmities to a 
* Dalyell's ' Darker Superstitions of Scotland.' 



56 THE WITCHES OF SCOTLAND. 

stranger: and Elspeth Keoch of Orkney, who pulled 
the herb called melefowr (millfoil ?) betwixt her finger 
and thumb, saying, " In Nomine Patris, Filii, et Spiri- 
tus Sancti," thus curing men's distempers in a devilish 
and unwholesome manner: and Agnes Scottie, who 
refused to speak word to living man before passing " the 
boundis of hir ground, and their sat down, plaiting her 
feit betwixt the merchis," that a certain woman might 
have a good childbirth ; who was also convicted " of 
washing the inner nuke of her plaid and aprone," for 
some wicked and sinister purpose ; for what sane Scottish 
woman would wash her clothes more than was abso- 
lutely necessary ? and who could curse as well as cure, 
and transfer as well as give the sickness she could 
heal: and Marable Couper who threw a "wall piet" 
at a man who spoke ill of her, and made his face bleed, 
so that he went mad, and could only be recovered by 
her laying her hands on him, whereby he received his 
senses and his health again : and Agnes Yullock, who 
went to the guid wyfe of Langskaill, and by touching 
her gave her back her health : and William Gude, who 
had power over all inanimate things, and by his touch 
could give them back the virtue they had lost. These 
are only a few, very few, of the cases to be found in the 
various judiciary records of the year 1616 — a year no 
worse than others, and no better, where all were bad 
and blood-stained alike. 

In 1618 one of the saddest stories of all was to be 
read in the tears of a few sorrowful relatives, and in the 
exultation of those fanatics who rejoiced when the 
accursed thing plucked out from them was of more 
goodly savour and of a fairer form than usual, and 
thus was a meeter sacrifice for the Lord. Of all the 
heartrending histories to be found in the records of 



THE PITIFUL FATE OF MARGAEET BARCLAY. 57 

witchcraft, the history of Margaret Barclay and her 
" accomplices " is saddest, most sorrowful, most heart- 
rending. 



THE PITIFUL FATE OF MARGARET BARCLAY.* 

Margaret was a young, beautiful, high-spirited 
woman, wife of Archibald Dein, burgess of Irvine, and 
not on the best of terms with John Dein, her husband's 
brother. Indeed, she had had him and his wife before 
the Kirk session for slander, and things had not gone 
quite smoothly with them ever since. When, therefore, 
the sliip. The Grace of God, in which John Dein was 
sailing, sank in sight of land, drowning him and all his 
men, the old quarrel was remembered, and Margaret, 
together with Isobel Insh and John Stewart, a wandering 
" spaeman," was accused of having sunk the vessel 
by charms and enchantments. Margaret disdainfully 
denied the charge from beginning to end : Isobel said 
she had never seen the spaeman in her life before ; but 
Stewart " clearly and pounktallie confessit " all the 
charges brought against him, and also said that the 
women had applied to him to be taught his magic arts, 
and that once he had found them both modelling ships 
and figures in clay for the destruction of the men and 
vessel aforesaid. And as it Avas proved that Stewart 
had spoken of the wreck before he could have known it 
by ordinary means, suspicion of sorcery fell upon him, 
and he was taken : and made his confession. He said 
that he had visited Margaret to help her to her will, 
when a black dog, breathing fire from his nostrils, had 
formed part of the conclave ; and Isobel's own child, a 

* Scott" s ' Demonology and Witchcraft.' 



58 THE WITCHES OF SCOTLAND. 

little girl of eight, added to this, a black man as well. 
Isobel, after denying all and sundry of the charges 
brought against her, under torture admitted their truth. 
In the night time she found means to escape from her 
prison, bruised and maimed with the torture as she 
was ; but in scrambling over the roof she fell to the 
ground, and was so much injured that she died five days 
afterwards. Margaret was then tortured : the spaeman 
had strangled himself, which was the best thing he 
could do, only it was a pity he did not do it before ; 
and poor Margaret was the last of the trio. The 
torture they used, said the Lords Commissioners, was 
" safe and gentle." They put her bare legs into a pair 
of stocks, and laid on them iron bars, augmenting their 
weight one by one, till Margaret, unable to bear the 
pain, cried out to be released, promising to confess the 
truth as they wished to have it. But when released she 
only denied the charges with fresh passion; so they 
had recourse to the iron bars again. After a time, 
pain and weakness overcame her again, and she shrieked 
aloud, " Tak off! tak off! and befoir God I will show 
ye the whole form!" She then confessed — whatever 
tliey chose to ask her; but unfortunately, in her 
ravings, included one Isobel Crawford, who when ar- 
rested — as she was on the instant — attempted no de- 
fence, but, paralyzed and stupefied, admitted every- 
thing with which she was charged. Margaret's trial 
proceeded: sullen and despairing, she assented to the 
most monstrous counts : she knew there was no hope, 
and she seemed to take a bitter pride in suffering her 
tormentors to befool themselves to the utmost. In the 
midst of her anguish her husband, Alexander Dein, 
entered the court, accompanied by a lawyer. And then 
her despair passed, and she thought she saw a glimmer 



THE PITIFUL FATE OF MARGAKET BAECLAY. 59 

of life and salvation. She asked to be defended. " All 
that I have confessed," she said, " was in an agony of 
torture ; and before God all that I have spoken is 
false and untrue. But," she added pathetically, turning 
to her husband, " ye have been owre lang in coming !" 
Her defence did her no good ; she was condemned, and 
at the stake entreated that no harm might befall Isobel 
Crawford, who was utterly and entirely innocent. To 
whom did she make this prayer? to hearts turned 
wild and wolfish by superstition; to hearts made 
fiendish by fear ; to men with nothing of humanity save 
its form — with nothing of religion save its terrors. She 
might as well have prayed to the fierce winds blowing 
round the court-house, or the rough waves lashing 
the barren shore! She was taken to the stake, there 
strangled and burnt : bearing herself bravely to the last. 
Poor, brave, beautiful, young Margaret ! we, at this long 
lapse of time, cannot even read of her fate without tears ; 
it needed all the savageness of superstition to harden 
the hearts of the living against the actual presence of 
her beauty, her courage, and her despair ! ; 

Isobel Crawford was now tried ; " after the assistant 
minister, Mr. David Dickson, had made earnest prayer 
to God for opening her obdurate and closed heart, she 
was subjected to the tortm-e of the iron bars laid upon 
her ^ bare shins, her feet being in the stocks, as in the 
case of Margaret Barclay." She endured this torture 
" admirably," without any kind of din or exclamation, 
suffering above thirty stone of iron to be laid on her 
legs, never shrinking thereat in any sort, but remain- 
ing steady and constant. But when they shifted the 
iron bars, and removed them to another part of her legs, 
her constancy gave way, as Margaret's had done, and 
she too broke out into horrible cries of "Tak off! tak 



60 THE WITCHES OF SCOTLAND. 

off !" She then confessed — anything — everything — and 
was sentenced : but on the way to her execution she 
denied all that she had admitted, interrupted the 
minister in his prayer, and refused to pardon the execu- 
tioner, according to form. Her brain had given way, 
and they fastened to the stake a bewildered, raving 
maniac. God rest their weary souls ! 



MAKGAEET WALLACE AND HER DEAR BURD.* 

Margaret Wallace (1622), spous to John Dynning, 
merchant and citizen of . Glasgow, hated Cuthbert Greg. 
She had sent Cristiane Grahame to him, wanting liis 
dog ; but he would not give it, saying, " I rather ye and 
my hussie (cummer, gossip) baith was brunt or ye get 
my dog." Margaret, coming to the knowledge of this 
speech, went to him angrily, and said, " Ffals land- 
loupper loun that thow art, sayis thow that Cristiane 
Grahame and I sail be brunt for witches? I vow to 
God I sail doe ye ane evill tume." So she did, by 
means of a cake of bread, casting on him the most 
strange, unnatural, and unknown disease, such as none 
could mend or understand. Suspecting that he was 
bewitched, his friends got her to come and undo the 
mischief she had done : so she went into the house, 
took him by the " scliaikill bane " (shoulder-blade) with 
one hand, and laid the other on his breast, but spoke 
no word, only moved, her lips; then passed from 
him on the instant. The next day she went again 
to his house, and took him up out of bed, leading 
him to the kitchen and tliree or four times across 
the floor, though he had been bedridden for fifteen 

* Pitcairn. 



MARGAEET WALLACE AND HER DEAR BURD. 61 

days, unable to put his foot to the ground. And if all 
that was not done by devilish art and craft, how was it 
done ? asked the judges and the jury. Another time 
she went to the house of one Alexander Yallange, where 
she w^as taken with a sudden '' brasch " of sickness, and 
was so hardly holden that they thought she would have 
" ry ved " herself to fits. She cried out piteously for her 
" dear burd," and the bystanders thought she meant 
her husband : but it turned out to be the witch Cris- 
tiane Grahame that she wanted — whom they imme- 
diately sent for. Cristiane came at once, and took 
Margaret tenderly in her arms, saying " no one should 
hurt her dear burd, no one ;" then carried her down 
stairs into the kitchen, and so home to her own house. 
The little daughter of the house ran after them ; on 
the threshold, she was seized with a sudden pain, and 
falling down cried and screamed most sorely. Her 
mother went to lift her up crossly, but she called out, 
*•' Mother, mother, ding me nocht, for there is ane preyne 
(pin) raschet throw my fute." She " grat " all the 
night, and was very ill ; her parents watching by her 
through the long hom's: but when Margaret wanted 
the mother to let her be cured by Cristiane's aid, she 
said sternly, no, " scho wad commit her bairne to God, 
and nocht mell with the devill or ony of his instru- 
mentis." However, Margaret Wallace healed the little 
one unbidden ; by leaping over some bits of green cloth 
scattered in the midst of the floor, and then taking her 
out of bed and laying her in Cristiane Grahame's lap 
— which double sorcery cm-ed her instantly. Cristiane 
Grahame had been burnt for a witch some time before 
this trial ; and now Margaret Wallace, in this year of 
our Lord 1622, was doomed to the same fate : bound 
to a stake, strangled, burnt, her ashes cast to the wind, 



62 THE WITCHES OF SCOTLAND. 

and all lier worldly gear forfeit to king's majesty, be- 
cause she was a tender-hearted, loving woman, with a 
strong will and large mesmeric power, and did her best 
for the sick folk about her. 



THOM REID AGAIN.* * 

Isobell Haldane confessed before the Session of 
Perth, May [5, 1623, that she had cured Andro Dun- 
can's bairn by washing it and its sark in water brought 
from the Turret Port, then casting the water into a 
burn ; but in the going " scho skaillit (spilt) swm 
quhilk scho rewis ane evill rew, becaus that if onye had 
gone ower it they had gottyn the ill." She confessed, 
too, that about ten years since, she, lying in her bed, 
was taken forth, whether by God or the devil she knows 
not, and carried to a hill : the hill-side opened, and she 
went in and stayed there from Thursday to Sunday 
at eleven o'clock, when an old man with a gray beard 
brought her forth. The old man with the gray beard, 
who seems to have been poor Bessie Dunlop's old ac- 
quaintance, told her many things after this visit. He 
told her that John Koch, who came to the wright's shop 
for a cradle, need not be so hasty, for his wife would 
not be lighter for five weeks, and then the bairn should 
never lie in the cradle, but would die when baptized : as 
it proved, and as John Eoch deposed on her trial. Also, 
he told her that Margaret Buchanan, then in good 
health, should prepare herself for death before Fastings 
Even, which was a few days hence ; and Margaret died as 
she predicted. And Patrick Kuthven deposed that he, 
being sick — bewitched by one Margaret Hornscleugh — 

* Pitcairn and Chambers. 



BESSIE SMITH. 63 

Isobell came to see him, and stretched herself upon 
him, her head to his head, her hands on his, and so 
forth, mumbling some words, he knew not what. And 
Stephen Eay deposed that tliree years since he had 
detected Isobell in a theft, whereon she clapped him on 
the back, and said, " Go thy way ; thow sail nocht win 
thyself ane bannok of breid for yeir and ane day;" and 
so it proved. He pined away, heavily diseased, and did 
not do a stroke of work for just three hundred and 
sixty-six days, of the full four-and-twenty hours' count. 
But Isobell said that her sole words were, "He that 
delyueret me frome the fifairy ffolk sail tak amends on 
the :" and that she had never meaned to harm him, 
nor even to answer him ungently. But she confessed 
to various charms ; such as a cake made of small hands- 
ful of meal, gotten from nine several women who had 
been married, virgins — through a hole in which sick 
children were to be passed, to their decided cure ; and 
she confessed to getting water, silently going, and 
silently returning, from the well of Ruthven, in which 
to bathe John Gow's child ; and to having made a drink 
of focksterrie* leaves for Dan Morris's child, who " wes 
ane scharge " (changeling or fairy child), which fock- 
sterrie drink she made it swallow ; when it died soon 
after. So Isobell Haldane shook hands mth life, and 
went back to Thom Reid and the fairy folk on the hill, 
helped thither by the hangman. 

BESSIE SMITH. 

In the July of this same year Bessie' Smith of Les- 
mahago also confessed to sundry unlawful doings. 

* Star-grass, queries Pitcairn ; but is it not rather fox-tree — fox- 
glove ? 



64 THE WITCHES OF SCOTLAND. 

When people who were ill of the heart fevers went to 
her for advice, instead of employing honest drugs such 
as every Christian understood and nauseated, she bade 
them kueel and ask their health "for God's sake, for 
Sanct Spirit, for Sanct Aikit, for the nine maidens 
that died in the boor-tree in the Ladywell Bank. This 
charm to be bulk and beil to me, God grant that sae 
be." This charm, with the " way burn " leaf to be eaten 
for nine mornings, was sufficient to prove Bessie Smith 
of Lesmahago a necromancer; and the presbytery of 
Lanark did quite righteously, according to its lights, 
when they made her come before them and confess her 
crimes, humbly. Fortunately, they did not burn her. 



THOMAS GRIEVE'S ENCHANTMENTS (1623).* 

Thomas Grieve was a notorious enchanter, according 
to the Session, which prided itself on being "ripely 
advised." He put a woman's sickness on a cow, which 
ran mad, and died in consequence ; and he cured Wil- 
liam Kirk's bairn by stroking its hair back from its 
face and wrapping it in an enchanted cloth, whereby it 
slept, and woke healed. He cured cattle of "the 
heastie," or any other bovine disease untranslateable, 
by sprinkling the byre with enchanted water ; and he 
cured sick people by putting them through a hank of 
yarn, which then he cut up and threw into the fire, where 
it burned blue. He healed one woman by " fyring " — 
putting a hot iron, which was supposed to burn the 
obsessing witch — into some magic water brought from 
Holywell, Hill-side, and making her drink it ; and he 
cured another woman by burning a poor hen ahve, first 

* Cliambers, Daly ell, Pitcaim. 



KATHEllINE GRANT AND HER STOUP. 65 

making her carry it, when half roasted, under her arm ; 
and he took in hand to heal Elspeth, sister of John 
Thomson, of Corachie — passing with her two brothers in 
the night season from Corachie towards Burley, enjoin- 
ing them not to speak a word all the way, and whatever 
they beard or saw, not to be anywise " effrayed," saying 
" it micht be that thai would heir grit rumbling and sie 
vncouth feii'full apparitiones, but nothing suld annoy 
thame." Arrived at the ford at the east of Birley he 
washed her sark ; and during the time of this washing 
there was a gTeat noise made by fowls in the hill, beasts 
that arose and fluttered in the water — "beistes that 
arrais and flichtered " in the water ; and when he put her 
sark upon her again, Elspeth mended and was healed. 
And of another patient he propounded this wise opinion, 
come to by the examination of his sark : " Allace, the 
withcraft appointit for ane vther hes lichtit vpoune 
him," but it had not yet reached his heart. And further 
than all this, which was bad enough, he made signs and 
crosses, and muttered uncouth words^ and believed in 
himself and the devil : so he was strangled and burnt, 
and an end come to of him : for which the neighbours 
all were glad, even those he had benefited, and the 
ministers were quite satisfied that they had given glory 
to God in the holiest manner open to them. 



KATHERINE GRANT AND HER STOUP.* 

Katherine Grant, in the November of the year 1623, 
was dilatit for that she had gone to Henry Janies' house, 
with " a stoup in hir hand, with the boddome foremost, 
and sat down ryght foment the said Henrie, and gantit 

* Dalyell, quoting the judiciary records of Orkney. 

F 



66 THE WITCHES OF SCOTLAND. 

thryce on him : and going furth he followit hir ; and 
beiyan the brigstane, scho lukit over her shoulder, 
and tui-ned up the quliyt of her eye, quhair by her 
divihie, their fell ane great weght upoun him that he 
was forcit to set his bak to the wall, and when he came 
in, he thoucht the hous ran about with him, and their- 
efter lay seik ane lang tyme." Katherine Grant was 
not likely to overcome the impression of such testimony 
as this : that she should have gone to any man's house 
and yawned thrice,, and added to this devilry the fur- 
ther crime of looking over her slioulder, was quite 
enough evidence of guilt for any sane man or woman 
in Orkney. Can we wonder, then, that she was not suf- 
fered to vex the sunlight longer by carrying pails bottom 
upwards, or yawning tlirice in the faces of decent folk, 
and that she was taken forth to be strangled, burnt, 
and her ashes cast to the four winds of the merciful 
heaven ? 



THE MISDEEDS OF MAEION EICHAET.* 

"Mareoune" Eichart, alias Langland, dwelt on one 
of the wild Orkney islands, not far from where mad 
Elspeth Sandisome kept the whole country in fear 
lest she should do something terrible to herself or to 
others. Marion was invited to go the house, and try 
her skill at curing her, for she was known to be an 
awful witch, and able to do whatever she had a mind in 
the way of healing or killing. So she went, and set her- 
self to her charm. She took some "remedie water" — 
which she made into " remedy water," by carrying it in 
a round bowl to the byre where she cast into it some- 

* Hibbert, quoting the Orkney Eecords. 



LADY LEE'S PENNY. 



67 



thing like " great salt," taken from her purse, spitting 
thrice into the bowl, and blowing in her breath — and 
with this magic " remedie watter forspeking," she bade 
Elspeth's woman-servant wash her feet and hands, and 
she would be as well as ever she had been before. 
This was bad enough ; but worse than this, she came to 
Stronsey on a day, asking alms of "Andro Coupar, 
skipper of ane bark," to whom said Andrew rudely, 
"xiway witch, carling ; devils ane farthing ye will fall !" 
whereupon went Marion away " verie offendit ; and 
incontinentlie he going to sea, the bark being vnder 
saill, he ran wode, and wald half luppen ourboord ; and 
his sone seing him gat him in his armes, and held him ; 
quhairvpon the sicknes immediatelie left him, and his 
sone ran made ; and Thomas Paiterson, seeing him tak 
his madnes, and the father to turn weill, ane dog being 
in the bark, took the dog and bladdit him vpon the twa 
schoulderis, and thaireftir flang the said dogg in the 
sea, quhairby those in the bark were saiffed." So 
Marion Eichart, alias Langland, learnt the hangman's 
way to the grave in the year of grace 1629 ; and her 
corpse was burned, when the hangman's rope had done 
its work. 



LADY LEE'S PENNY AND THE WITCHES OF 1629.* 

Isobel Young, spous to George Smith, was burnt, in 
1629, for cm'ing cattle, as well as for the other crimes 
belonging to a witch. She had sought to borrow Lady 
Lee's Penny — a precious stone or amulet, like to a 
piece of amber, set in a sHver penny, which one of 
the old Lee family had gotten from a Saracen in the 

* Pitcairn. Sharpe's Introduction to Law's * Memorials.' 



68 THE WITCHES OF SCOTLAND. 

Crusades — and which Lee Penny was to help her in her 
incantations, for curing "the bestiall of the routting evill," 
whatever that might have been. But Lady Lee let her 
have only a flagon of water in which the amulet had 
been steeped, which did quite as well, and helped to set 
the stake as quickly as anything else would have done. 
Various other mischancy things did Isobel Young. She 
stopped a certain mill, and made it incapable of grind- 
ing for eleven days : she forespoke a certain boat, and 
though all the rest returned to Dunbar full and richly 
laden, this came back empty, whereby the owner was 
ruined : she bewitched milk that it would give no 
cream, and churns, so that no butter would come : she 
twice crossed the mill water on a wild and stormy night, 
when the milne horses could not ride it out, and where 
there was no bridge of stone or wood ; but Isobel the 
witch crossed and recrossed those raging waters under 
the stormy sky, and came out at the end as dry as if 
from a kiln. And was not this as unholy as taking off 
her "curch" at William Meslet's barn-door, and run- 
ning " thrice about the barn widdershins," whereby the 
cattle were caused to fall dead in " great suddainty ?" 
Then, as further iniquity, she had dealings with Chris- 
tian Grinton, another witch, who one night came out 
of a hole in the roof in the likeness of a cat ; and she 
cast a sickness from off her husband, and laid it on 
his brother's son, who, knowing full well that he 
was bewitched, came to the house, and there saw the 
*' firlott " — a certain measure of wheat — running about, 
and the stuff poppling on the floor, which was the 
manner of the charm. Drawing his sword, this hus- 
band's brother's son ran on the pannel (the accused) to 
kill her, but was witch-disabled, and only struck the 
lintel of the door instead ; so he went home and died, 



LADY LEE'S PENNY. 69 

and Isobel Young was tlie cause of his death by the 
cantrip wrought in the locomotive firlott and the 
poppling grain. Forbye all this, she was seen riding on 
" ane mare " — at least her apparition was seen so riding 
— and by her sorcery and devilish handling the mare 
was made to cast its foal, and since died. So Isobel 
Young was of no more value to the world or its in- 
heritors, and died by the cord and the faggot, decently, 
as a convicted witch should. And Margaret Maxwell 
and her daughter Jane were haled before the Lords of 
Secret Council for having procured the death of Edward 
Thomson, Jane's husband, " by the devilish and detes- 
table practice of witchcraft ;" and Janet Boyd was tried 
for "the foul and detestable crime" of receiving the 
devil's mark, besides being otherwise dishonestly inti- 
mate with him; but this was in 1628, and we are now 
in 1629 : and then the Lords of the Privy Council pub- 
lished a thundering edict, forbidding all persons to have 
recourse to holy words, or to make pilgrimages to 
chapels, and requiring of its Commissioners to make 
diligent search in all parts for persons guilty of this 
superstitious practice, and to have up and put in ward 
all such as were known to be specially devoted thereto. 
The meaning of the decree was to plague the Catholics, 
and Hibbert quotes part of this " Commission against 
Jesuits, Priests, or Communicants and Papists, going in 
pilgrimage." But whatever the political significance of 
the edict, the social effect was to make the search after 
the White Witches, or Black, hotter and more bitter 
than ever. 



70 THE WITCHES OF SCOTLAND. 



ELSPETH CURSETTER AND HER FRIENDS.* 

Elspeth Cursetter was tried, May 29 (still in 1629), 
for all sorts of bad actions. She bade one of her 
victims "get the bones of ane tequhyt (linnet), and 
carry thame in your claithes " ; and she gave herself out 
as knowing evil, and able to do it too, when and to 
whomsoever she would ; and she sat down before the 
house of a man who refused her admittance — for she 
was an ill-famed old witch, and every one dreaded her 
— saying, " 111 miglit they all thrive, and ill may they 
speed," whereby in fourteen days' time the man's horse 
fell just where she had sat, and was killed most lament- 
ably. But she cured a neighbour's cow by drawing 
a cog of water out of the burn that ran before Wil- 
liam Anderson's door, coming back and taking three 
straws — one for William Anderson's wife, and one for 
William Coitts' wife, and one for William Bichen's wife 
— which she threw into the pail with the water, then 
put the same on the cow's back ; by which charm the 
three straws danced in the water, and the water bubbled 
as if it had been boiling. Then Elspeth took a little 
quantity of this charmed water, and thrust her arm up 
to the elbow into the cow's throat, and on the instant the 
cow rose up as well as she had ever been ; but William 
Anderson's ox, which was on the hill, dropped down 
dead. Likewise she worked unholy cantrips for a sick 
friend with a paddock (toad), in the mouth of a pail 
of water, which toad was too large to get down the 
mouth, and when it was cast forth another man sick- 
ened and died immediately : and she spake dangerous 
words to a child, saying, " Wally fall that quhyt head of 

* DalyeU. 



ELSPETH CURSETTER AND HER FRIENDS. 71 

thine, but the pox ^yill tak the away frae thy mother." 
As it proved, for the little white head was laid low a 
short time after, when the small-pox raged through the 
land. "Thow can tell eneugh yf thow lyke," said the 
mother to her afterwards, "that could tell that my 
bairne wold die so long befoir the tyme." '' I can tell 
eneugh if I durst," replied Elspeth, over proud for her 
safety. But in spite of all this testimony, Elspeth got 
off with " arbitrary punishment," which did not include 
burning or strangKng, so was luckier than her neigh- 
bours. Luckier than poor Jonet Eendall was, who, on 
the 11th of November (1629), was proved a witch by the 
bleeding of the corpse of the poor wretch whom she 
had "enchanted" to his death. For "as soon as she 
came in the coi-pse having lain a good space, and not 
having bled any, immediately bled much blood, as a 
sure token that she was the authoi' of his death." And 
had she not said, too, when a certain man refused her 
a Christmas lodging, ^' that it wald be weill if the gude 
man of that hous sould make ane other yule banket " 
(Christmas banquet) ; by which curse had he not died 
in fifteen days after? Wherefore was she a proved 
murderess as well as witch, and received the doom 
appointed to both alike. Alexander Drummond was a 
warlock who cured all kinds of horrid diseases, the very 
names of which are enough to make one ill; and he 
had a familiar, which had attended him for " neir this 
fifty yeiris :" so he was convicted and burnt. 

Then came Jonet Forsyth, great in her art. She could 
cast sickness on any one at sea, and cure him agaiu by 
a salt-water bath ; she could transfer any disease from 
man to beast, so that when the beast died and was 
opened, nothing could be found where its heart should 
have been but "a blob of water;" she knew how to 



72 THE WITCHES OF SCOTLAND. 

charm and sain all kinds of cattle by taking three 
drops of a beastie's blood on All Hallow E'en, and 
sprinkling the same in the fire within the innermost 
chamber ; she went at seed time and bewitched a stack 
of barley belonging to Michael Eeid, so that for many 
years he could never make it into wholesome malt; 
and this she did for the gain of Kobert Keid, changing 
the " profit " of the grain backwards and forwards be- 
tween the two, according as they challenged or dis- 
pleased her. All this did Jonet Forsyth of Birsay, to 
the terror of her neighbours and the ultimate ruin of 
herself, both in soul and body. Then came Catherine 
Oswald,* spouse to Kobert Aitcheson, in Niddrie, who 
was brought to trial for being ^' habite and repute " a 
witch — defamed by Elizabeth Toppock herself a witch 
and, as is so often the case, a dear friend of Katie's. Eli- 
zabeth need not have been so eager to get rid of her dear 
friend and gossip, for she was burnt afterwards for the 
same crimes as those for which poor Catherine suffered 
the halter and the stake. It seems that Katie was bad for 
her enemies. She was offended at Adam Fairbairn and 
his wife, so she made their " twa kye run mad and 
rammish to died," and also made a gentleman's bairn 
that they had a-fostering run wood (mad) and die. And 
she fired William Heriot's kiln, full of grain ; and burnt 
all his goods before his eyes ; and made his wife, in a 
" frantick humour," drown herself ; and she cursed John 
Clark's ground, so that for four years after "by hir 
sorceries, naether kaill, lint, hempe, nor any other 
graine " would grow thereon, though doubly " laboured 
and so wen." She bewitched Thomas Scott by telling 
him that he looked as well as when Bessie Dobie was 
living, whereby he immediately fell so deadly sick that 
* Law's ' Memorials,' (Sharpe's Litroduction,) and Dalyell. 



SANDIE AND THE DEVIL. 



73 



he could not proceed furtlier, but was carried on a horse 
to Newbiggin, where he lay until the morrow, when " a 
wife " came in and told him he was forespoken. And 
other things as mischievous — and as true — did Catherine 
Oswald, as the Kecord testij&es. She was well defended, 
and might have got off, but that a witness deposed to 
having seen Mr. John Aird the minister, and a most 
zealous witch-finder, prick her in the shoulder with a 
prin, and that no blood followed thereafter, nor did she 
shrink as with pain or feeling. And as there was no 
gainsaying the evidence of the witch-mark, Satan and 
Mr. John Aird claimed their own. Was Catherine's 
brand like a " blew spot, or a little tate, or reid spots, 
like flea-biting?" or with "the flesh sunk in and 
hallow?" according to the description of such places, 
published by Mr. John Bell, minister of the gospel in 
Gladsmuir. We are seldom told of what precise cha- 
racter the marks were, . only that they were found, 
pricked, and tested, and the witch hung or burnt on 
their testimony. 



SAOT)IE AND THE DEVIL.* 

Soon after Catherine Oswald's execution, one of her 
crew or covin, who had been with her on the great 
storm in "the borrowing days (in anno 1625), on the 
Brae of the Saltpans," a noted warlock, by name Alex- 
ander Hunter, or Hamilton, alias Hatteraick, which last 
name he had gotten from the devil, was brought to 
execution on the Castle Hill. It was in 1629 that 
he was taken. It was proved that on Kingston hills 
he had met with the devil as a black man, or, as Sin- 
* Chambers, Sinclair, Dalyell. 



U THE WITCHES OF SCOTLAND. 

clair says, as a mediciner ; and often afterwards he 
would meet him riding on a black horse, or he would 
appear as a corbie, cat, or dog. When Alexander 
wanted him he would beat the ground with a fir stick 
lustily, crying, " Eise up, foul thief !" for the master 
got but hard names at times from his seryants. This 
fir stick, and four shillings sterling, the devil gave to 
him when the compact was first made between them ;■ 
and he confessed, moreover, that when raised in this 
manner he could only be got rid of by sacrificing to 
him a cat or dog, or such like, " quick." Also he set 
on fire Provost Cockburn's mill of corn, by taking three 
stalks from his stacks, and burning them on Garleton 
Hills ; and he owned to a deadly hatred against Lady 
Ormiston, because she once refused him " ane almous," 
and called him " ane custroune carle." So, to punish 
her, he and some witches raised the devil in Salton 
Wood, where he appeared like a man in gray clothes, 
and gave him the bottom of a blue clew, telling him to 
lay it at the lady's door : " which he and the women 
having done, *the lady and her daughter were soon 
thereafter bereft of their naturall lyfe.' " But Sinclair's 
account is the most graphic. I will give it in his own 
words : — 

" Anent Hattaraick, an old Warlock. 

*' This man's name was Sandie Hunter, who called 
himself Sandie Hamilton, and it seems so called 
Hattaraik by the devil, and so by others as a Nickname. 
He was first a Neatherd in East Lothian, to a gentle- 
man there. He was much given to charming and 
cureing of men and Beasts, by words and spels. His 
charms sometimes succeeded and sometimes not. On a 
day, herding his kine upon a Hill side in the summer 
time, the Devil came to him in form of a Mediciner, and 



SANDIE A]ST) THE DEVIL. 



75 



said, * Sandie, you have too long followed my trade, 
and never acknowledged me for your master. You 
must now take on with me, and I will make you more 
perfect in your calling. Whereupon the man gave up 
himself to the devil, and received his Mark with this 
new name. After this he gTew very famous throw 
the countrey for his charming and cureing of diseases in 
men and beasts, and turned a vagrant fellow like a 
Jockie, gaining Meat, Flesh, and Money by his Charms, 
such was the ignorance of many at that time. 

*' Whatever House he came to, none dm^st refuse Hat- 
taraik an alms, rather for his ill than his good. One 
day he came to the yait of Samuelstown, when some 
Friends after dinner were going to Horse. A young Gen- 
tleman, Brother to the Lady, seeing him, switcht him 
about the ears, saying, * You Warlok Cairle, what have 
you to do here ?' whereupon the Fellow goes away 
grumbling, and was overheard to say, ' You shall dear 
buy this, ere it be long.' This was Damnum Minatum. 
The young Gentleman conveyed his Friends a far way 
off, and came home that way again, where he slept. 
After supper, taking his horse and crossing Tine-water 
to go home, he rides throw a shado^^y piece of a Haugh, 
commonly called the Allers, and the evening being 
somewhat dark he met with some Persons there that 
begat a dreadful consternation in him, which for the 
most part he would never reveal. This was malum 
seeutum. When he came home, the Servants observed 
terror and fear in his countenance. The next day he 
became distracted, and was bound for several days. 
His sister, the Lady Samuelstoun, hearing of it, was 
heard to say, * Surely that knave Hattaraik is the cause 
of his Trouble. Call for him in all haste.' WTien he 
had come to her, ' Sandie,' says she, * what is this 



76 THE WITCHES OF SCOTLAND. 

you have done to my brother William?' ' I told him,' 
says he, * I should make him repent his striking of 
me at the Yait lately.' She gave the Kogue fair words, 
and promising him his Pock full of Meal with Beef and 
Cheese, persuaded the Fellow to cure him again. He 
undertook the business ; ^ but I must first,' says he, 
' have one of his Sarks,' which was soon gotten. What 
pranks he plaid with it cannot be known. But within 
a short while the gentleman recovered his health. 
When Hatteraik came to receive his wadges, he told 
the Lady, ' Your Brother William shal quickly goe off 
the Countrey but shall never return.' She, knowing the 
Fellow's prophecies to hold true, caused her Brother to 
make a Disposition to her of all his patrimony, to the 
defrauding of his younger brother George. After that 
this Warlock had abused the Countrey for a long time, 
he was at last apprehended at Dunbar, and brought 
into Edinburgh, and burnt upon the Castle Hill." But 
not until he had delated several others of hitherto 
good repute, so that for the next few months the witch- 
fiinder's hands were full. 



THE MIDWIFE'S DOUBLE SIN. 

Notably was arrested about this time. Alio Nisbet, 
midwife ; and three others. Alie was accused of witch- 
craft ; and of a softer, but as heinous a crime as witch- 
craft. This she confessed to ; but the breaking of the 
seventh commandment in Christian Scotland, in the 
year 1632, was a far more dangerous thing than we can 
imagine possible in our laxer day ; and Alie was on the 
horns of a dilemma, either of which could land her in 
ruin, death, and perdition. She was accused, among 



KATHERINE GRIEVE AND JOHN SINCLAIR. 77 

otlier things, of having taken her labour pains from off 
a certain woman, using " charmes and horrible words, 
amongs which thir ware some, the hones to the fire and 
the soldi to the devill ;" but this Alie denied, strenuously, 
though she admitted that she might have bathed the 
woman's legs in warm water, which she had bewitched 
for good, by putting her fingers into it and running 
thrice round the bed, widershins ; but the spoken charm 
as given she would have none of. The labour pains, 
however, left the woman, and were foully and unnatu- 
rally cast upon another who had no concern therewith, 
so that she died in four-and-twenty hours from that time, 
and Alie was the murderess by all the laws of sorcery. 
She was accused, also, of having poured some enchanted 
water on a threshold over which a servant girl, against 
whom she had a spite, must pass, and the servant girl 
died therefrom. Alie was wirriet and burnt and troubled 
the world no more. 



KATHERINE GRIEVE AND JOHN SINCLAIR * 

Katherine Grieve, too (1633), w^as brought to judg- 
ment and sentenced to be " taken to the mercat crose 
and brunt in the cheick, in example of others," with 
the future prospect, that if she haunted suspected 
places, or used charms " scho sould be brunt in asches 
to the dead without dome or law, and that willinglie, of 
hir owne consent." For Katherine's curses had wroaged 
both man and beast, which evil thing she had brought 
to pass by the power of the devil her master. However, 
she was forced to undo her evil, and by laying on of 
hands cure the sore she had made : so she got off with 

* DalyeU's ' Darker Superstitions.' 



78 THE WITCHES OF SCOTLAND. 

this smaller punishmeiit of branding, and a rebuke* 
And there was John Sinclair tried that same year; 
a cruel villain to others, if loving to his own. For 
under silence and cloud of night he took his dis- 
tempered sister, sitting backward on the horse, and 
carried her from where she lay to the Kirk of Hoy. 
Then a voice came to him, saying " Seven is too many, 
but four might do ;" and in the morning a boat with 
^Ye men in it struck on the rocks, and four perished, 
but one was saved; by which fiendish and unholy 
sacrifice John Sinclair's sister was cured. He was 
proved to be their murderer, for when the dead men 
were found, and he was " forcit to lay his handis vpoun 
thame, they guishit out with bluid and watter at the 
mouth and noise." John Sinclah's thread of life needed 
no more waxing to make it run smoothly and easily. 
The hangman knew where the knot lay ; and cut it to 
the perfect satisfaction of all the country. 



BESSIE BATHGATE'S NIPS.* 

A year after this Bessie Bathgate, spouse to Alex- 
ander Kae, fell into trouble and the hands of the police. 
George Sprot, wobster, had some cloth of Bessie's, 
which he kept too long for her thinking. She went and 
took it violently away, and nipped his child in the 
thigh till it skirled, " and of wliich nip it never con- 
valesced, but dwamed thereof and died by hir sorcerie." 
Also, said Sprot's wife, giving her child an egg that 
came out of Bessie's house there struck out a lump as 
big as a goose egg upon the child, which continued on 
her till her death, which was occasioned by nothing 

* Pitcairn. Law's ' Memorials.' Chambers. 



BESSIE BATHGATE'S XIPS. 79 

else than tliis " enchanted egg.'' Furthermore she 
threatened Sprot that " he should never get his 
Sunday's meat to the fore by his work;" and he forth- 
with fell into extreme poverty, by which her Avords 
came true. To William Donaldson she said — he out- 
running her as she chased him to beat him for calling 
her a witch — " Weill, sir, the devill be in yom- feit," 
and he fell lame and imj^otent straightways, and so 
continued ever since. Other things of the same kind 
did she, bewitching 3Iargaret Home's cow that it died, 
*• and that night it died there was women seen dancing 
on the rigging of the byre ;" also she was seen by " two 
young men at 12 howers at even (when all persons are 
in their beds) standing barelegged and in hir sark 
valicot, at the back of hir yard, conferring with the 
devill, who was in gray cloaths ;" which, with other 
offences of the same nature, were, we should have 
thought, heavy enough to have lost a world. But 
Elizabeth Bathgate, spouse to Alexander Eae, was 
acquitted ; though how the verdict came about no one 
can possibly understand. 

It was not that any fit of mercy or humanity had 
come over the people. More than twenty poor ^vi-etches 
suffered about this time, Sh George Home of Man- 
derston, being one of the chief of the prosecutors : for 
Sir George and his wife did not live very lovingly 
together, and she was given to witches and warlocks — 
or they said she was — to see if she could not get rid of 
him by enchantments and sorceries : so Sir George had 
a pleasant mixture of spite and self-defence in his 
onslaught, and the whole country-side was in a stir. 
About this time too, John Balfom^, of Corhouse^ took on 
himself the office of witch-finder and pricker by thrust- 
ing "preens" into the marks; but he was not accepted 



80 THE WITCHES OF SCOTLAND. 

quite blindly, and measures were taken for examining 
liis pretensions to this special branch of knowledge. 
In general the pricker was the master of the situation, 
and brought all the rest to his feet. 



BESSIE SKEBISTEE.* 

All the honest men of the isle knew Bessie Ske- 
bister. She was the shrewdest witch in the whole 
country, and it was a usual thing with them when they 
thought their boats in danger to send to her to know 
the truth ; and, " Giff Bessie say it is weill, it is weill " 
was a common proverb in the Orkney Islands. She 
did other things besides foreknowing the fall of storms, 
for she took James Sandieson when in a strange dis- 
temper and tormented him greatly. " In his sleip, and 
oftymes waking," says the dittay, " he was tormented 
with yow, Bessie, and vther two with yow, quhom he 
knew not, cairying him to the sea, and to the fyre, to 
Norroway, Yetland, and to the south — that ye had 
ridden all this wayes, with ane brydle in his mouth." 
Moreover, Bessie was a " dreamer of dreams," as well 
as a rider of sick men's souls ; so she was strangled and 
burnt. 



THE TRIAL OF SPIRITS.f 

The trial of Katherine Craigie (1640), had a certain 
dash of poetry and romance in it, not often found in 
these woeful stories. Friend Bobbie — now friend, now 
foe — lay a-dying, and Katherine must needs go see him 

* Dalyell. f Chambers. 



THE TRIAL OF SPIEITS. 81 

with the rest. The wild waves were beating round that 
rugged Orkney Isle, when Katherine went over the 
heather to Bobbie's house. " What now, Kobbie ! ye 
are going to die !" she said. " I grant that I prayed ill 
for vow, and now I see that prayer hath taken effect. 
Jonet," quoth she, turning to the wife, " if I durst trust 
in yow, I sould knaw quhat lyeth on your guidman and 
holdis him downe. I sould tell whether it was ane hill 
spirit, ane kirk spirit, or ane water spirit that so troubles 
him." Jonet was too anxious not to promise secrecy or 
help, or anything else that Katherine wished ; so the 
next morning, before daylight, Katherine brought three 
stones to Bobbie's house, and put them into the fire, 
where they remained until after sunset. While the night 
was passing, they were taken from the fire, and put 
under the threshold of the door, then, in the early 
morning, thrown, one after the other, into a pail of 
water, where Jonet heard one of them " chirle and 
chirme." Upon which Katherine said that it was a 
kirk spu'it that troubled the guidman Bobbie, and he 
must be washed with the water in which the stones had 
"chu'led and chirmed." This ceremony was repeated 
thrice, and at the third time Katherine herself washed 
Bobbie, on whom this unusual cleansing had most 
powerful and beneficial effects. When one thinks of 
the normal state of filth in which these honest people 
lived, it is not surprising if any form of ablution proved 
of a most supernatural benefit. But Katherine Craigie 
got into the trouble from which there was no escape ; 
and friend Bobbie went back to his dirt, persuaded of 
the Satanic agency of a bath. 

Quite as full of poetic feeling was James E^narstoun's 
manner of charming with stones, when he took one 
stone for the ebb, another for the hill, and the third for 

G 



82 THE WITCHES OF SCOTLAND. 

the kirkyard, listening carefully as to what stone 
should make the " bullering " noise that would betray 
the tormenting spirit, and enable the magician to send 
him home again : a process through which Katherine 
Carey went (1617) when she found that her patient was 
troubled with the spirit of the sea, which would not let 
him bide in peace and quiet. Such touches as these 
redeem the subject from the sad monotony of sorrow 
and death which else pervades it from end to end, and 
lift it from the domain of the devil into the brighter and 
lovelier world of the Spirits of Nature. 



SIXTEEN HUNDRED AND FORTY-THEEE. 

In 1643 there was a fierce onslaught against the 
poor persecuted servants of the devil. Thirty women 
suffered at once in Fife alone ; and the more zealous of 
the ministers hounded on the people to terrible cruel- 
ties. There was one John Brugh,* "a notorious war- 
lock in the parachin of Fossoquliy, by the space of 36 
yearis," who was wirreit at a stake and burnt; and 
Janet Barker and Margaret Lauder, "indwellers and 
servands in Edinburgh," who came to confession boldly, 
and showed that they had read the stoiy of Europa to 
some pm'pose, though to a great deal of confusion. 
They accused Janet Cranstoun of seducing them, by 
promising them that if they gave themselves over to 
her and the devil, they should be " as trimlie clad as 
the best servands in Edinburgh." Coupled with the fact 
that they had witch-marks, their confession was accepted 
as undeniable, and their fate inevitably sealed. 

* Chambers. 



SIXTEEN HUNDRED AND FORTY-THREE. 83 

And there was Clarion Cumlaquoy,* in Birsay, who 
bewitched David Cumlaquoy's corn seed, and made it 
run out too soon. She had been very anxious to know 
when David would sow, and when she was told, she 
went and stood "just to his face " all the time he was 
casting, and that year his seed failed him, so that 
he could only sow a tliird of his land ; though he had 
as much grain as heretofore, and it had never run 
out too soon all the years he had farmed that land. 
And she went to Kobert Carstairs' house by sunrise one 
day, bringing milk to his good mother, though not used 
to show such attention ; and as she left she turned her- 
self three several times " withershins " about the fire, 
and that year Kobert Carstairs' "bear (barley) was 
blew and rottin," and his oats gave no proper meal, but 
made all who ate thereof heart-sick, albeit both bear 
and oats were good and fresh when he put them in 
the yard. And if all this was not proof against Marion 
Cumlaquoy, what would the Orkney courts hold as 
proof? As the past, so the present; and Marion Cum- 
laquoy must learn in prison and at the stake the evils 
that honest folk found in her power of " enchanting " 
corn and crops. There were many others in this same 
year, to catalogue whom would become at least weari- 
some and monotonous : they must be passed by unmen- 
tioned, and left to the silence and oblivion which is the 
privilege of the unfortunate dead. 

But among the victims was one Agnes Finnic, f a 
bitter-tongued, evil-tempered old hag, who had a curse 
and a threat for every one who offended her ; who 
killed young Fairlie with a terrible disorder, because 
he called her " Winnie Annie ;" and laid so frightful 

* DalyeU. 

t Chambers and Law ; Sharpe's Introduction. 



84 THE WITCHES OF SCOTLAND. 

a disease on Beatrix Nisbet, for some other trifling 
offence, that she lost the use of her tongue ; who 
made a " grit jist " (great joist) fall down on the leg of 
Euphame Kincaid's daughter, because Euphame called 
her a witch on being called by her a drunkard ; and 
appeared to John Cockburn in the night — the doors 
and windows being fast closed — terrifying him by her 
hideous old apparition in his sleep, because he had dis- 
agxeed with her daughter ; and who did all other wicked 
and uncanny things, like a raving, unprincipled, old hag 
as she was. She even forespoke Alexander Johnstone's 
bairne, so that it was eleven years old before it could 
walk, and all because she was not made godmother, or 
" had not gotten its name ;" and she made Margaret 
Williamson sick and blind, by saying most outrageously, 
" The deviQ blaw the blinde !" And she was a bad 
mother and evil exemplar to her daughter, bringing her 
up to be as vile as herself, at least in the way of 
quarrelling and fighting with her neighbom's, and then 
backing her vdth an unfair amount of her own super- 
natural powers. Thus, one day, Margaret Kobinson, the 
daughter in question, was usuig high Avords with Mawse 
Gourlay, spouse of Andrew Wilson, and Mawse, in a 
rage, called her "ane witche's get," which was about 
the vforst thing that could be said in those days between 
a couple of scolds. " Gif I be ane witche's get," cried 
Margaret, in extremest fmy, " the devill ryve the saull 
out of ye befoir I come again !" After which cruel and 
devilish imprecation, helped on by Winnie Annie's 
horrible art used at Margaret's instigation, Andrew 
Wilson became " frenatik " and stark mad : his eyes 
starting out of his head in the most terrible and fright- 
ful manner as he went about, ever pronouncing these 
words as his ordinary and continual speech — the per- 



SIXTEEN HUNDRED AND FORTY-THREE. 85 

petual raying of his madness — " The devill ryre the sauU 
out o' me !" For all which crimes — though she was 
ably defended — though, when her house was searched, 
" there was neither picture, toad, nor any such thing 
found therein, which ever any wdtch in the world was 
used to practize," — yet the evidence was held to be too 
strong, and Winnie Annie Finnie was ordained to be 
"brunt to the deid," and her ashes cast out to the winds 
of heaven. 

Janet Brown* was another of those who got into hot 
quarters.. She confessed that she had charmed James 
Hutton and Janet Scott with these words : — 

" Our Lord forth did raide, 
His foal's foot slade ; 
Our Lord down lighted. 
His foal's foot righted ; 

Saying flesh to flesh, blood to blood, and stane to stane, 
In our Lord his name." 

She said this was a charm that had been learnt her 
by a nameless man from Strathmiglo ; but Margaret 
Fisher, f in Weardie, spoke it somewhat differently. 
She had for her spell : — 

" Our Lord to hunting red, 
His sool-soot sled, 
Down he lighted. 
His sool-soot righted ; 
Blod to blod, 
Shinew to shine w, 
To the other sent in God's name, 
In the name of the Father, Sone, and Holy Ghost." 

Either version was equally efficacious as a cure to the 
sick and a curse to the whole ; and equally deadly as a 
crime in those who used it. And there was Margaret 

* Hibberfs ' Description of the Shetland Islands.' 
t Dalyell. Evidently the same thing with a different reading : — red, 
rode ; sool-soot, stirrup ; sled, slipped ; shinew, sinew. 



86 THE WITCHES OP SCOTLAND. 

Young, " ane honest young woman of good reputation, 
without any scandal or blot," who lay miserably in 
prison for ten weeks, without trial or release ; but she 
got off at last on her husband's becoming her surety. 
And Jonet Thomeson, who bewitched Andrew Burwick's 
corn, so that when carried to the mill it leapt up into 
his wife's face like mites, and as it were " nipped " her 
face until it swelled ; and when it was made into " meat," 
neither he nor his wife could abide the smell of it ; and 
when they did manage to eat it, it tasted like pins (" went 
owre lyke prinsis"), and could not be quenched for 
thirst : and the dogs would not eat of it, and the neigh- 
bours would not buy it ; so poor Andrew Burwick's gear 
was destroyed, and his means most sorely diminished. 
For all which deadly sorcery and malice Jonet Thome- 
son, alias Greibok, was made to smart severely. 

Marion Peebles* came to an untimely end, not im- 
reasonably, according to the witch-haters. She was " a 
wicked, devihsh, fearful, and abominable curser," and 
the world could not be too soon rid of her ; for had she 
not changed herself into the likeness of an unchristian 
beast, a mere shapeless monster, a huge and ugly 
" pellack-quhaill " (porpoise), and in this form wrecked 
the boat of Edward Halcro, to whom she and her 
husband had " ane deadlie and veneficial malice ?" 
Halcro and four other men were in the boat, and public 
suspicion pointed at once to Marion, and affirmed this 
wreck to be caused by her wicked deed. So when two 
of the dead bodies were brought to land, she and her 
husband had to undergo the halir-recht — the ordeal by 
touch of the dead — ^to prove themselves innocent or 
guilty. When they came where they lay the "said 
umquhile Edward bled at the collar-bane or craig-bane ;" 

* Hibbert, &c. 



SINCLAIR'S STORIES. 



87 



the otiier in the hand and fingers, " gushing out bluid 
thaii'at, to the great admiration of the beholders, and 
judgment of the Almytie." Many and heavy were 
Marion's misdeeds. She cursed Janet Kobinson, and 
"accordingly showers of pains and fits fell upon the 
victim." She looked upon a cow, and it "crappit to- 
gidder till no lyfe was leukit for her." She took away 
the profit of Edward Halcro's brewing, and destroyed 
the milk of Andrew Erasmusson's kye for thirteen days. 
Indeed, her character was so well known that when 
Swene, her husband, was working in a peat moss where a 
sickly feUow was one of the gang, his fellows would ask 
him seriously " if he could not make his wife go to her 
pobe (foster-father) the devil, and bid him loose a knot, 
so that the man might get back his health?" Once 
she cast a sickness on a woman, then took it from her 
and flung it on a calf, which went mad and died; 
and she crippled a man, then cured him under com- 
pulsion, by putting her fingers first to his leg and then 
to the ground, which she did twice, muttering to her- 
self ; but the report of this getting about, she was angry 
and banned the man once more, yet once more was 
forced to cure him ; — this time by means of a bannock 
prepared with her own hands, whereby she cast his 
malady on a cow. Poor cowey died of her strange 
sickness, and poor Marion died of a worse disease — 
the rope and the faggot : and then the neighbourhood 
slept in peace. 



SINCLAIR'S STORIES.* 

On a certain day in a certain month, a.d. 1644, a 
woman went to the house of another woman in Borrow- 
* Sinclair's ' Invisible World Discovered.' 



88 THE WITCHES OF SCOTLAND. 

stonness. She went early, and instantly fell to mauling 
and pulling her, crying, " Thou traitour thief, thou 
thought to destroy my son this morning, but it was not 
in thy power !" And then she pulled her mutch from 
off her head, and mauled and maltreated her anew. 
Now the meaning of the row was, t;:at this woman had 
a son out at sea, w^hom she, so cruelly assaulted, had 
sought to destroy by means of a sudden storm raised 
by magic means tliis very day. The storm was actually 
raised, and many of the crew suffered; but tl:e son of 
the woman at Borrowstonness was washed overboard by 
one wave, and washed on board again by another wave, 
which so filled all the mariners with amaze that they 
came ashore. The dispute between the two women 
becoming noised abroad, and the thing being as the one 
had said, it was found that they were both in equal 
fault — that the one had done, and the other known, too 
much ; wherefore they were burnt as witches, and the 
world had the satisfaction of hearing them confess 
before they died. 

Another woman, " about thirty and two, or three and 
thirty years of age, a most beautiful and comely person 
as was in the country about," wffe to one Goodaile, a 
cooper, in Carrin, was fyled for a witch and put in 
prison. She was the devil's favourite and dear delight ; 
and at their meetings she was the person whom " he did 
most court and embrace, calling her constantly my dear 
mistress, setting her always at his right hand, to the 
gTeat discontent of his old haggs, whom, as they now 
conceived, he slighted;" but her time came at last, 
and the law caught hold of her in place of the devil, 
and gave her a yet more struigent embrace. James 
Fleming, a sea-captain, and a man of great personal 
courage and physical strength, was set to watch her, 



SINCLAIR'S STORIES. 



89 



for the magistrates feared lest ttie devil should at- 
tempt her rescue, since he loved her so well ; and to 
him she said, that if she got no deliverance bygone 
o'clock in the morning, she would lay her breast open 
to him and confess freely. James Fleming, a little 
alarmed at this, and not liking to encounter the devil 
single-handed, took down fourteen of his ship's company 
with him, " not forgetting the reading of Scripture and 
earnest prayer to God." Sure enough the foul fiend 
came : for on a sudden at midnight a tremendous hur- 
ricane arose, which unroofed the house where they all 
were, and threatened to bring the whole place about 
their ears, and a voice was heard calling to her by a 
strange name to come away : " at which time she made 
three several loups upward, increasing gradually till her 
feet were as high as his breast." But though James 
Fleming's hair was standing widershins on his head, 
and though his heart failed him for dread and fear, 
and he " beteached " himseK to God " with great 
amazement," yet his muscles continued as serviceable 
as ever, and at last got the better even of the Prince of 
Darkness. He held this beautiful and comely person 
in his powerful arms, and kept her there, through aU 
her struggles to get free ; and at last succeeded in 
tin-owing her down upon the ground, where for some 
time she grovelled and foamed like one in the falling 
sickness, and then sank into a deep sleep. When she 
awaked she complained bitterly of the devil, saying how 
that he had promised to release her and carry her over 
to Ireland, touching at Paisley by the way, where she 
had a sister living; but now she saw through all his 
treachery and perfidiousness, and understood how she 
had been made his dupe. She was burnt in all peni- 
tence and good conduct, as was also another woman 



90 THE WITCHES OF SCOTLAND. 

about the same time, who, putting up her' arm to swear 
that she was not a witch, had it suddenly withered and 
stiffened so that she could not bring it back again : nor 
was she able to do so, until a minister who was there, 
had intreated God in her behalf; for the ministers 
were always men of mighty power on such occasions, 
and either made or marred at their pleasure. If they 
chose to accept a case as possession, they prayed and 
exorcised; but if it seemed good to them to call it 
witchcraft, then the poor wretch's life was doomed, and 
no man might hope to save. It was very seldom they 
cared so much for humanity as to choose the more 
merciful of the two absurdities. Sometimes, though, 
the devil was as good as his word, and made at least an 
attempt, if a clumsy one, to release his servants : as when 
he took Helen Eliot from the steeple of Culross where 
she was confined, and carried her in his arms through 
the air. He might have landed her in safety somewhere 
— who knows? — had she not cried out, ^'0 God 1 whither 
are you taking me ?" At which words he let her fall 
" at the distance from the steeple of about the breadth 
of the street of Edinburgh, whereby she broke her 
legs and otherwise seriously injured herself." Many 
thousand people flocked to see the dimple which her 
heels had made, and over which no grass would grow 
again. So at last they built a stone dyke round it, and 
kept the impression safe. 

In 1649 Lady Pittathrow was delated of witchcraft. 
She was put in prison waiting for her trial; but one 
morning she was found dead, having strangled herself, 
or been strangled by the devil — the world might deter- 
mine which according to its pleasure. Shortly after, 
Bessie Grahame was apprehended for a few drunken 
words said against John Kankin's wife, who had since 



SINCLAIR'S STORIES. 



91 



died. Dm'ing a confinement of thirteen weeks she was 
visited by the minister, who found her obdurate in con- 
fession, and was much inclined to find her innocent of 
crime. But Alexander Bogue, a pricker, came to 
examine her, and discovered the mark, into which he 
thrust a pin, which neither pained nor drew blood. 
Still she was held to be innocent, until one day Mr. 
James Fergusson, the minister, heard her talking to 
the devil as soon as she was alone. He knew it was the 
devil, for his voice was hollow and ghoustie, and the 
servant, -Alexander Sympson, was like to have fallen 
back for fear. Still Bessie would never confess any- 
thing beyond general unworthiness and the usual tale 
of vague misdeeds, owning, indeed, to a special horror 
of him, the minister, and how she was not " let to love 
him," as indeed was no special miracle ; and then she 
fell to railing at him bitterly, which was less a miracle 
than all else. So she was burnt, dying obdurate and 
unconfessed ; and thus another murder reeked up to 
heaven, crying aloud for vengeance, because John 
Kankin's wife died suddenly, and an intemperate old 
woman swore in her cups and had a habit of speaking 
to herself. 

Agnes Gourlay was accused of charming milk. She 
told Anna Simpson to throw a small quantity of the 
milk into the " grupe " or sewer of the byre, saying, 
" God betak us to ! May be they are under the earth 
that have as much need of it as they that are above 
the earth ! " After which bread and salt were to be 
put into the cows' ears, and milk would come. Agnes 
got off by penance and confession : which was more than 
Janet Couts did, or Archibald Watt, alias " Sole the 
Paitlet;" though eleven other poor creatm-es delated 
escaped theu- doom, partly because the burgh of 



92 THE WITCHES OF SCOTLAND. 

Lanark disliked having so many mouths to feed in 
prison pending their trial. 

At Lauder, in 1649, Hob Grieve was accused of 
witchcraft. Twenty years agone his wife, who had 
been burnt for a witch, told Hob that he might get 
rich if he would follow her counsel and go along with 
her. So he went with her to a haugh on Gallow-water, 
to meet, as she said, a gentleman there ; but he saw 
only a large mastiff dog, '' which amazed him." At 
last came the devil as a black man, telling him that if 
he would take suit and service with him he should be 
made rich. He was to be officer at the meetmgs, and 
hold the door at the sabbaths. Hob consented, and for 
eighteen years held that office ; but it does not seem 
that the foul fiend kept his part of the condition, for 
Hob had enough to do to find salt for his porridge. He 
was always poor, and remained poor to the end, with 
all the kicks and none of the halfpence ; and for his 
eighteen years of servitude got only suspicion and ill- 
will, without fat or fry to comfort him. When taken, 
he " delated " many, who, for the most part, confessed. 
After he had filled the prison, so that it could hold no 
more, he accused another still, a woman of Lauder. The 
magistrate kept the secret, wishing to wait until some 
of the accused were " emptied out," having nowhere to 
put her ; but the devil, always at mischief, went to her 
in the night time, and told her what Hob Grieve had 
said. Next day she arose and came to the prison, 
railing at Hob, calling him warlock and slave to the 
devil, and what not. She was told to go home, but she 
sat down on the Tolbooth stairs, and said she would 
never stir until she and that slave of Satan had 
been confronted. The bailie himself came to her, and 
told her to go home ; but that was too mild a proceed- 



SINCLAIR'S STORIES. 93 

ing. " No," she cried, " I must be set face to face with 
that rascal who has delated me, an honest woman, for 
a witch." She was set face to face with him, and she 
fell down on her bare knees, and cursed him. Says 
she, " Thou common thief, how dare thou for thy soul 
say that ever before this time thou saw me or I saw 
thee, or ever was in thy company, either alone or with 
others ? " Hob listened to her railings patiently, till 
commanded by the bailie to speak, when says he, 
" How came she then to know that I had called her a 
witch ? Surely none but the devil, thy old master and 
mine, has told thee so much." " The devil and thou 
perish together, for he is not my master though he be 
thine. I defy the devil and all his works ! " said the 
woman. Then Hob reminded her of the many times and 
places where they had met while in the same service ; 
whereat she cried, " Now I perceive that the devil is a 
lyar and a murderer from the beginning, for this night 
he came to me, and told me to come and abuse thee ; 
and never come away till I was confronted with thee, 
and he assured me that thou would deny all and say, 
thou false tongue, thou lyest !" She then confessed all 
mth which she was charged, and was executed. Hob 
was a very penitent sinner : being now a mere lunatic, 
he was easy to manage, and exceeding confidential in 
his confessions. He said that once in Musselburgh 
water the devil had tried to drown him when he had a 
heavy creil on his back ; and even since he had been 
in prison he had come to cast him into the fire. But 
though there was a very crowd " fylit " by this poor 
maniac, he was innocent of the death of a certaiu 
woman who was hanged a short time after. The 
magistrates, glutted to satiety with victims, wanted to 
save her ; but she would accept no chance offered to 



94 THE WITCHES OF SCOTLAND. 

her. She had been fyled as a witch, she said, and as 
a witch she would die. And had not the devil once, 
when she was a young lassie, kissed her, and given her 
a new name ? Keason enough why she should die, if 
even nothing worse lay behind. At last the day of her 
execution came, and she was taken out to be burnt 
with the rest. On her way to the scaffold she made 
this lamentable speech : — '' Now all you that see me 
this day, know that I am now to die a witch by my 
own confession ; and I free all men, especially the 
ministers and magistrates, of the guilt of my blood. I 
take it wholly on myself. My blood be upon my own 
head; and as I must make answer to the God of 
heaven presently, I declare I am as free of witchcraft 
as any child ; but being delated by a malicious woman, 
and put in prison under the name of a witch, disowned 
by my husband and friends, and seeing no ground of 
hope of my coming out of prison or ever coming in 
credit again, through a temptation of the devil, I made 
up that confession on purpose to destroy my own life, 
being weary of it, and choosing rather to die than to 
live." How many poor wretches had been like this 
unhappy creature — disowned by husband and friends, 
seeing no ground of hope of ever coming in credit 
again, and therefore in despair choosing rather to die 
than to live ! In this special case even the magistrates, 
usually so passionately determined that all the accused 
should be found guilty and suffer death, even they 
seem to have sought her release, and to have refused 
the evidence of her confession as long as they could ; 
but the times were not sufficiently enlightened for 
them to refuse it altogether; and so she gained the 
fiery goal whither her anguish and despair impelled her. 



95 



MAOTE HALIBURTON.* 

In 16-19, John Kinnaird, the witch-finder, made de- 
position that he had " pricked " Patrik Watson, of 
West Fenton, and Manie Hahburton, his spouse, and 
that he had found the devil's mark on Patrik's back 
a little under the point of his left shoulder, and on 
Manie's neck a little above her left shoulder ; of which 
marks they were not sensible (had no feeling in them), 
neither came there any blood when pricked. So Manie, 
seeing that the scent was hot and the game up, made 
confession, and saved further trouble. She said that 
eighteen years ago, the devil had come to her in like- 
ness of a man, calling himself a physician, saying that 
he had good salves, and specially oylispek (oil of spike 
or spikenard), wherewith he would cure her daughter, 
then sick. So she bought some of his salves, and gave 
him two English shillings for her bargain, forbye bread 
and milk and a pint of ale. In eight days' time he 
came again, and stayed all night ; and the next morn- 
ing, Patrik being " forth " and Manie yet in bed, she 
became more intimately acquainted with the devil than 
an honest woman should. We do not read that Manie 
was tortured, and, considering that it was not an un- 
usual thing to keep suspected witches twenty-eight 
days and nights on bread and water, they being stripped 
stark naked, with only a haircloth over them, and laid 
on a cold stone, or to put them into hair-shirts steeped 
in vinegar, so that the skin might be pulled from off 
them, we feel that poor Manie got off pretty well 
with only cremation as the result of her mad con- 
fessions. 

* Pitcaim. 



96 THE WITCHES OF SCOTLAND. 

But one of the most extraordinary things of all was 
that wonderful bit of knavery and credulity called 



THE DEVIL OF GLENLUCE,* 

when Master Tom Campbell set the whole country in 
a flame, and brought no end of notice and sympathy 
upon his house and family. In 1654 one Gilbert 
Campbell was a weaver in Glenluce, a small village 
not far from Newton Stewart. Tom, his eldest son, 
and the most important personage in the drama, was 
a student at Glasgow College ; and there was a certain 
old blaspheming beggar, called Andrew Agnew — 
afterwards hanged at Dumfries for his atheism, having 
said, in the hearing of credible witnesses, that " there 
was no God but salt, meal, and water" — who every now 
and then came to Glenluce to ask alms. One day old 
Andrew visited the Campbells as usual, but got nothing ; 
at which he cursed and swore roundly, and forthwith 
sent a devil to haunt the house, for it was soon after 
this refusal that the stirs began, and the connection 
was too apparent to be denied. For what could they 
be but the malice of the devil sent by old Andrew in 
revenge ? Young Tom Campbell was the worst beset 
of all, the demon perpetually whistling and rioting 
about him, and playing him all sorts of diabolical 
and malevolent tricks. Once, too, Jennet, the young 
daughter, going to the well, heard a whistling behind 
her like that produced by " the small slender glass 
whistles of children," and a voice like the damsel's, 
saying, " I'll cast thee. Jennet, into the well ! I'll cast 
thee, Jennet, into the well ! " About the middle of 

5" Sinclair. 



THE DEVIL OF GLENLUCE. 97 

November, when the days were dark and the nights 
long, things got very bad. The foul fiend threw stones 
in at the doors and windows, and down the chimney 
head ; cut the warp and threads of Campbell's loom ; 
slit the family coats and bonnets and hose and shoon 
into ribbons ; pulled off the bed-clothes from the sleep- 
ing children, and left them cold and naked, besides ad- 
ministering sounding slaps on those parts of their little 
round rosy persons usually held sacred to the sacrifices 
of the rod ; opened chests and trunks, and strewed the 
contents over the floor ; knocked everything about, and 
ill-treated bairn and brother ; and, in fact, persecuted 
the whole family in the most merciless manner. The 
weaver sent his children away, thinking their lives but 
barely safe, and in their absence there were no assaults 
whatever — a thing to be specially noted. But on the 
minister's representing to him that he had done a 
grievous sin in thus withdrawing them from God's 
punishments, they were brought back again in con- 
trition. Only Tom was left behind, and notliing en- 
sued until Tom appeared ; but unlucky Tom brought 
back the devil with him, and then there Avas no more 
peace to be had. 

On the Sunday following Master Tom's return, the 
house was set on fire — the devil's doing: but the 
neighbours put the flames out again before much 
damage had ensued. Monday was spent in prayer ; 
but on Tuesday the place was again set on fire, to be 
again saved by the neighbours' help. The weaver, in 
much trouble, went to the minister, and besought him 
to take back that unlucky Tom, whom the devil so 
cruelly followed and molested ; which request he, after 
a time, " condescended to," though assuring the weaver 
that he would find himseK deceived if he thought that 



93 THE WITCHES OF SCOTLAND. 

the devil would quit with the boy. And so it proved ; 
for Tom, having now indoctrinated some of his juniors 
with the same amount of mechanics and legerdemain 
as he himself possessed, managed that they should be 
still sore troubled — the demon cutting their clothes, 
throwing peats down the chimney, pulling off turf 
and *' feal " from the roof and walls, stealing then- 
coats, pricking their poor bodies with pins, and raising 
such a clamour that there was no peace or rest to 
be had. 

The case was becoming serious. Glenluce objected 
to be made the head-quarters of the devil; and the 
ministers convened a solemn meeting for fast and humi- 
liation ; the upshot of which was that weaver Campbell 
was led to take back his unlucky Tom, with the devil 
or without him. For this was the point at issue in the 
beginning ; the motive of which is not hard to be dis- 
covered. Whereupon Tom returned ; but as he crossed 
the threshold he heard a voice " forbidding him to 
enter that house, or any other place where his father's 
calKng was exercised." Was Tom, the Glasgow stu- 
dent, afraid of being made a weaver, consent or none 
demanded ? In spite of the warning voice he valiantly 
entered, and his persecutions began at once. Of com^se 
they did. They were tremendous, unheard of, bar- 
barous; in fact, so bad that he was forced to return 
once more for a time to the minister's house ; but his 
imitator or disciple left behind carried on business in 
his absence. On Monday, the 12th day of February, 
the demon began to speak to the family, who, nothing 
afraid, answered quite cheerily : so they and the devil 
had long confidential chats together, to the great im- 
provement of mind and morals. The ministers, hearing 
•of this, convened again, and met at weaver Campbell's, 



THE DEYIL OF GLENLUCE. 99 

to see what they coiild do. As soon as they entered, 
Satan began : " Qiium literatum is good Latin/' quoth, 
he. These were the first words of the Latin rudiments, 
as taught in the grammar-school. Tom's classical know- 
ledge was coming into play. 

After a while he cried out, " A dog ! a dog ! " The 
minister, tliinking he was alluded to, answered, " He 
thought it no evil to be reviled of him ;" to which Satan 
replied civilly, " It was not you, sir, I spoke to : I meant 
the dog there ;" for there was a dog standing behind 
backs. They then went to prayer, during which time 
Tom — or the devil — remained reverently silent ; his 
education being not yet carried out to the point of 
scoffing. Immediately after prayer was ended, a 
counterfeit voice cried out, " Would you know the 
mtches of Glenluce ? I wiU tell of them," naming four 
or five persons of indifferent rejDute, but one of whom 
Avas dead. The weaver told the devil this, thinking to 
have caught him tripping ; but the foul fiend answered 
promptly, " It is true she is dead long ago, but her 
spirit is living with us in the w^orld." 

The minister replied, saying, " Though it was not con- 
venient to speak to such an excommunicated and inter- 
communed person, ' the Lord rebuke thee, Satan, and 
put thee to silence. We are not to receive information 
from thee, whatsoever fame any person goes under. 
Thou art seeking but to seduce this family, for Satan's 
kingdom is not divided against itself.' " After which 
little sparring there was prayer again ; so Tom did not 
take much by this move. 

All the while the young Glasgow student was very 
hardly holden, so that there was more prayer on his 
special behalf. The devil then said, on their rising, 
•' Give me a spade and a shovel, and depart from the 



100 THE WITCHES OF SCOTLAND. 

house for seven days, and I will make a grave and lie 
down in it, and shall trouble you no more." 

The good man Campbell answered, " Not so much as 
a straw shall be given thee, through God's assistance, 
even though that would do it. God shall remove thee 
in due time." Satan cried out, impudently, " I shall 
not remove for you. I have my commission from 
Christ to tarry and vex this family." Says the minister, 
coming to the weaver's assistance, " A permission thou 
hast, indeed ; but God will stop it in due time." Says 
the demon, respectfully, "I have, sir, a commission 
which perhaps will last longer than yours." And the 
minister died in the December of that year, says Sin- 
clair. Furthermore, the demon said he had given Tom 
his commission to keep. Interrogated, that young 
gentleman replied in an off-hand way, that "he had 
had something put into his pocket, but it did not tarry." 
They then began to search about for the foul fiend, and 
one gentleman said, " We think this voice speaks out of 
the children." The foul fiend, very angry at this — or 
Master Tom frightened — cries out, " You lie ! God shall 
judge you for your lying ; and I and my father will 
come and fetch you to hell with warlock thieves." So 
the devil discharged (forbade) the gentleman to speak 
anything, saying, " Let him that hath a commission 
speak (meaning the minister), for he is the servant of 
God." The minister then had a little religious contro- 
versy with the devil, who answered at last, simply, " I 
knew not these scriptures till my father taught me 
them." Nothing of all this disturbing the easy faith of 
the audience, they, through the minister, whom alone 
he would obey, conjured him to tell them who he was ; 
whereupon he said that he was an evil spirit come from 
the bottomless pit of hell, to vex this house, and that 



THE DEVIL OF GLENLUCE 101 

Satan was his father. And then there appeared a naked 
liand, and an arm from the elbow downward, beating on 
the floor till the house did shake again, and a loud and 
fearful crying, " Come up, father ! come up, father ! I 
will send my father among ye ! See ! there he is 
behind your backs !" 

Says the minister, " I saw, indeed, a hand and an 
arm, when the stroke was given and heard." 

Says the devil, " Saw ye that ? It was not my hand, 
it was my father's ; my hand is more black in the 
loof." 

'* Oh !" said Gilbert Campbell, in an ecstacy, " that I 
might see thee as well as I hear thee !" 

*' Would ye see me ?" says the foul thief. " Put out 
the candle, and I shall come but* the house among you 
like fire-balls ; I shall let ye see me indeed." 

Alexander Bailie of Dunraget said to the minister, 
" Let us go ben,t and see if there is an}" hand to be 
seen." But the demon exclaimed, " No ! let him (the 
minister) come ben alone : he is a good honest man : his 
single word may be believed." He then abused Mr. 
Eobert Hay, a very honest gentleman, very ill with his 
tongue, calling him witch and warlock: and a little 
while after, cried out, "A witch! a witch! there's a 
witch sitting upon the ruist! take her away." He 
meant that there was a hen sitting on one of the 
rafters. They then went to prayer again, and, when 
ended, the devil cried out, "If the good man's son's 
prayers at the College of Glasgow did not prevail with 
God, my father and I had wrought a mischief here ere 
now." Ah, Master Tom, did you then know so much of 
prayer and the inclining of the counsels of God ? 

Alexander Bailie said, " Well, I see you acknowledge 

* To the outer room. f To the inner room. 



102 TUE WITCHES OF SCOTLAND. 

a God, and that prayer prevails with him, and therefore 
we must pray to God, and commit the event to him." 
To whom the devil replied, having an evident spite 
against Alexander Bailie, "Yea, sir, you speak of 
prayer, with your broad-lipped hat" (for the gentleman 
had lately gotten a hat in the fashion with broad lips) ; 
" I'll bring a pair of shears from my father's which shall 
clip the lips of it a little." And Alexander Bailie 
presently heard a pair of shears go clipping round his 
hat, "which he lifted, to see if the foul thief had 
meddled with it." 

Then the fiend fell to prophesying. " Tom was to be 
a merchant. Bob a smith, John a minister, and Hugh a 
lawyer," all of which came to pass. Turning to Jennet, 
the good man's daughter, he cried, " Jennet Campbell, 
Jennet Campbell, wilt thou cast me thy belt ?" 

Quoth she, " What a widdy would thou do with my 
belt?" 

"I would fain," says he, "fasten my loose bones 
together." 

A younger daughter was sitting " busking her 
puppies" (dressing her puppets, dolls), as young girls 
are used to do. He threatens to " ding out her harns," 
that is, to brain her ; but says she quietly, " No, if God 
be to the fore," and so falls to her work again. The 
good wife having brought out some bread, was breaking- 
it, so that every one of the company should have a 
piece. Cries he, " Grissel Wyllie ! Grissel Wyllie ! give 
me a piece of that haver bread. I have gotten nothing 
this day but a bit from Marritt," that is, as they speak 
in the country, Margaret. The minister said to them 
all, " Beware of that ! for it is sacrificing to the devil !" 
Marritt was then called, and inquired if she had given 
the foul fiend any of her haver bread. " No," says she ; 



THE DEVIL OF GLENLUCE. 103 

"but wlien I was eating my due piece tliis morniug, 
sometliing came and clicked it out of my hands." 

The evening had now come, and the com23any pre- 
pared to depart ; the minister, and the minister's wife, 
Alexander Bailie of Dunraget, with his broad-lipped hat, 
and the rest. But the devil cried out in a kind of 
agony— 

" Let not the minister go I I shall burn the house if 
he goes." AVeaver Campbell, desperately frightened, 
besought the minister to stay ; and he, not willing to 
see them come to mischief, at last consented. As he 
turned back into the house, the devil gave a great gaff 
of laughing, saying, " Now, sir ! you have done my 
bidding !" which was unhandsome of Tom — very. 

" Not thine, but in obedience to God, have I returned 
to bear this man company whom thou dost afflict," says 
the minister, nowise discomposed, and not disdaining to 
argue matters clearly with the devil. 

Then the minister "discharged" all fi'om speaking to 
the demon, saying, " that when it spoke to them they 
must only kneel and pray to God." This did not suit 
the demon at all. He roared mightily, and cried, 
" What ! will ye not speak to me ? I shall strike the 
bairns, and do all manner of mischief!" No answer 
was returned ; and again the children were slapped and 
beaten on their rosy parts — where children are accus- 
tomed to be whipped. After a while this ended too, 
and then the fiend called out to the good- wife, " Grissel, 
put out the candle !" 

" Shall I do it ?" says she to the minister's -svife. 

"No," says that discreet person, "for then you shall 
obey the devil." 

Upon which the devil shouted, with a louder voice, 
" Put out the candle !" No one obeyed, and the candle 



104 THE WITCHES OF SCOTLAND. 

continued burning. "Put out the candle, I say !" cries 
he, more terribly than before. Grissel, not caring to 
continue the uproar, put it out. " And now," says he, 
" I will trouble you no more this night." For by this 
time I should suppose that Master Tom was sleepy, and 
tired, and hoarse. 

Once again the ministers and gentlemen met for 
prayer and exorcism ; when it is to be presumed that 
Tom was not with them, for everything was quiet ; but 
soon after the stirs began again, and Tom and the rest 
were sore molested. Gilbert Campbell made an appeal 
to the Synod of Presbyters, a committee of whom ap- 
pointed a special day of humiliation in February, 1656, 
for the freeing of the weaver's house from this afflic- 
tion. In consequence whereof, from April to August, 
the devil was perfectly quiet, and the family lived 
together in peace. But after this the mischief broke 
out again afresh. Perhaps Tom had come home from 
college, or his father had renewed his talk of settling 
him firmly to his own trade : whatever the cause, the 
effect w^as certain, the devil had come back to Glenluce. 

One day, as the good-wife was standing by the fire, 
making the porridge for the children, the demon came 
and snatched the "tree- plate," on which was the oat- 
meal, out of her hand, and spilt all the meal. " Let 
me have the tree-plate again," says Grissel Wyllie, 
very humbly ; and it came flying back to her. " It is 
like if she had sought the meal too she might have got 
it, such is his civility when he is intreated," says Sin- 
clair. But this would have been rather beyond even 
Master Tom's power of legerdemain. Things after this 
went very ill. The children were daily thrashed with 
heavy staves, and every one in the family underwent 
much personal damage; until, as a climax, on the 



THE DEYIL OF GLENLUCE. 105 

eighteenth of September, the demon said he would 
burn the house down, and did, in fact, set it on fire. 
But it was put out again, before much damage was 
done. 

After a time — probably by Tom's going away, or 
becoming afraid of being found out — the devil was 
quieted and laid for ever ; and Master Tom employed 
his intellect and energies in other ways than terrifying 
his father's family to death, and making stirs which 
went by the name of demoniac. 

This account is taken almost verbatim from an article 
of mme in "All the Year Bound;" and if a larger 
space has been given to this than to many other stories, 
it is because there was more colouring, and more dis- 
tinctness in the dravdng, than in anything else that I 
have read. Though scarcely belonging to a book on 
"\Wtches, there is yet a hoolv and eye, if a very slender 
one, in the fact that the old beggar, Andrew Agnew, 
was hanged ; and we may be sure that it was not only 
his atheism, but also his naughty tricks with Satan, and 
his connection with the devil of Glenluce, that helped 
to fit the hangman's rope round his neck. There are 
many other stories of haunted houses, notably, Mr. 
Monpesson's at Tedworth caused by the Demon 
Drummer, and the Woodstock Devil who harried the 
Parliamentary Commissioners to within an inch of their 
lives, and others to the full as interesting ; but there is 
no hook and eye with them — nothing by which they can 
be hung on to the sad string of witches, or witchcraft 
murders. Baxter has two or three such stories; and 
the curious in such matters will find a large amount of 
interesting matter in the various works referred to at 
the foot of the pages ; matter which could not be in- 
troduced here, because of its not belonging strictly to 



106 THE WITCHES OF SCOTLAND. 

the subject in hand. I do not think that any candid 
or unprejudiced person will fail in seeing the dark 
shadow of fraud and deceit flung over every such 
account remaining. The importance of which, to me, is 
the evident and distinct likeness between these stories 
and the marvels going on now in modern society. 



JONET WATSON AND THE DEYIL IN GREEN. 

Steadily went on these appalling judicial crimes. In 
February, 1658, two women and a man were in the 
Tolbooth at Edinburgh, imprisoned on the charge of 
witchcraft. One of the women died in prison, the other, 
Jonet Anderson,* confessed that before her marriage, 
which had been only three months ago, she had given 
herself up body and soul to the devil, and that when she 
was married she had seen him standing by the pulpit. 
She was kept only so long as was necessary to prove her 
not pregnant, and then was executed, fully repentant. 
In August four women, " ane of them a maiden," were 
burnt on the Castle Hill in ghastly company ; and soon 
after five more from Dunbar ; and then again nine 
from Tranent, all confessing. These seemed to have 
stayed the appetite of the magistrates for a time, as we 
come across no more until 1661, when a painful collec- 
tion of lies, slanders, and confessions again harrow ujd 
every feeling, and outrage every reasoning faculty. 

Jonet Watson was one of the first to make her con- 
fession. She said that in April last, bypast or thereby, 
she being at the burial of Lady Dalhousie, a rix dollar 
was given to Jean Bughane, to be divided among a cer- 
tain number of poor folk, whereof she was one. But 
* Chambers. 



JONET WATSON AND THE DEVIL IN GREEN. 107 

Jean ran away with tlie money, so poor Jonet got none 
of it : whereat being very grieved and angry, when she 
came to her own house she wished to be revenged on 
Jean, and at the wish appeared the devil in the likeness 
of a pretty boy in green clothes, and asked : " what 
ailed her, and what revenge would she have?" He 
then gave her his mark and left her under the form of 
a black dog, and for three days after she had a gnat 
constantly with her, and one morning when she was 
changing her linen it sat down upon her shoulder, 
where she had one of her marks. Also about the time 
of last Baal-f}Te night (the beginning of May) she was 
at a meeting in Newton-dein, where was the devil 
dressed in green clothes, with a black hat on his head. 
And here she denied Christ, and took upon herself to be 
his servant, he laying his hand on her head, and receiv- 
ing from her " aU that was under his hand," when he 
gave her the name of " weill-dancuig Jonet," and she 
and a few more danced like Tarn o' Shanter's hags, and 
probably tired the devil out. 

Beatrice Leslie * was a witch too, and Agnes, wife of 
William Young, gave her some wholesome advice and 
honest reproof on the matter, whereby Beatrice was 
offended, and gave her a terrible look ; and that very 
night William Young awakened out of his sleep all in 
terror and dismay, crying out that Beatrice, with a 
number of cats, was devouring him. Beatrice had a cat 
which two coal-heaving damsels killed by letting some 
coals fall on it, afterwards adding to their offence by 
throwing away her coal-basket. So Beatrice cursed 
them, and told them "they should see an ill sight 
before eight days were past :" as it fell out, for accord- 
ing to her threatening they were both killed in the 
* Chambers. 



108 THE WITCHES OF SCOTLAND. 

coal-pit, though no one else was hurt ; and when she was 
brought to see and touch the corpses, the one bled at 
the nose and the other at the ear, thus proving her 
guilt beyond the possibility of denial. Also she helped 
Alexander Wilson's wife in child-bed, by cantrips and 
unholy sleights ; sticking a bare knife bet^vixt the bed 
and the straw, sprinkling salt about the bed, and saying, 
" Lord, let never ane worse wight waken thee, nor lies 
laid thee downe," with other villanies, unwholesome to 
honest folk ; so Beatrice Leslie saw the sun for the last 
time between the cord and the flames. 



THE LANTHOKNE AND THE BAHE-KECHT.* 

Christian Wilson, alias the Lanthorne, which name 
she had gotten from the devil at the time of her bap- 
tism, was too famous in her generation. She lived 
near her brother Alexander,, and there was notorious 
ill blood betw^een them, perhaps because of her notorious 
evil proceedings. One evening Alexander was found 
dead in his own house, naked, with his face torn and 
cut, but without a spot of blood anywhere. Yet a 
'' greate lumpe of fleisch " had been cut out of his 
cheek more cleanly than any ordinary razor could have 
cut either flesh or cheese. Christian bore herself 
strangely. She expressed no sorrow, perhaps because 
she felt none, and absolutely refused to see or touch the 
corpse according to the fashion of the honest and the 
orthodox of the time. This refusal did her much harm 
in men's minds, for was it not very evident that she was 
afraid of the bier-law, or bahr-recht, which, in 1661, 
when all this took place, was such a useful agent of the 

* Pitcairn and Sinclair. 



THE LANTHORNE AND THE BAHK-RECHT. 109 

police, and helped so powerfully to the discovery of 
murder ? The bailies and ministers heard the rumours 
affecting her, and commanded her to be brought into 
the house to touch the corpse, as the rest had done. 
" She came trembling all the way to the house, but she 
refused to come nigh the corpse, or to touch it, saying 
that ' she never touched a dead corpse in her life.' " 
The neighbours did not allow of her plea, and dragged 
her to the mm-dered man, that she might touch it softly. 
She went forward to do so. " But before shoe did it, 
the Sone being shyning in at the howse, shoe exprest 
herselfe thus, humbly desyring that, * as the Lord made 
the Sone to shine and give light into that howse, that 
also he would give light to discovering of that murder !' 
And with these words shoe tuitching the woimd of the 
dead man verie softlie, it being whyte and cleane, with- 
out any spot of blood or the lyke, yet immediately, 
while her fingers was upon it, the blood rushed owt of 
it, to the greate admiratioune of all the behoulders, who 
tooke it for discoverie of the murder according to her 
own prayers." Another charge, no less grave than that 
of murder, was, that William Kichardson, having felled 
one of her hens with a stone, she frowned on him threat- 
eningly, and said he should never throw another stone. 
And he never did ; for immediately he fell into ane 
*• franicie " and madness, took to his bed, and died in a 
few days, all the time of his sickness crying out against 
Cristiane Wilson, who, he said, was tormenting him in 
the likeness of a grey cat. After his death his nephew 
teased the witch by calling her "The Lanthorne," 
which every one knew to be her devil-name ; but Cris- 
tiane threatened him, and said that " if he did not hold 
his peace she would make him die by the same death as 
his uncle,", which was proof sufQcient of the truth of the 



110 THE WITCHES OF SCOTLAND. 

grey cat and her guilty sorcery. This was the same 
Cristiane Wilson who, when she was being carried off 
to Nidrie, there to be confronted with another witch, 
was suddenly lifted off the pilHon by a furious blast of 
wind, which she got the devil to raise in the hope of 
her rescue. But though she was blown into the stream, 
she swam lightly as a witch should and as only a witch 
could, and her jailers fished her out agaia, to secure her 
better for the future. As the sky was cloudless when 
the blast arose, and as no storm followed after, there was 
no possibility of doubting the Satanic origin of that 
mighty puff of wind. Besides, did not Jennot Cock, 
another confessing witch, say to John Stevin, when he 
told her that Cristiane was to be carried to Mdrie to- 
morrow, " Will not yow think it a sport, if the deivill 
raise a whirrell of wind, and tak her away from among 
yow by the gette (way) to-morrow?" This and that 
together made the thing certain; and the fall of the 
poor wretch was included in the djttay as one of the 
counts against her, proving her witchcraft. 

Witch-finding now increased rapidly in Scotland. 
No fewer than fourteen special commissions were issued 
for the sole purpose of trying witches for the sederunt 
of November the 7th, 1661 ; and on the 23rd of January, 
1662, fourteen more were made out. It was the popu- 
lar amusement of the day, and no one or two men then 
living could have turned the tide in favour of these 
poor persecuted creatures. Even Sir George Mackenzie, 
that " noble wit of Scotland," failed to make any rea- 
sonable impression on the besotted public, though his 
pleadings and writings got him into immense disfavour 
with the religious part of the community, and caused 
him to be ranked as an atheist and Sadducee, and 
classed with the Pilates and Judases of history. Though 



THE PAPISTS AND CALVIKISTS. Ill 

it had been the Bull of Pope Innocent VIII. in 1484, 
which had first stirred up the zeal of the godly against 
witchcraft, and written that terrible text, " Thou shalt 
not suffer a wdtch to live," in still more terrible charac- 
ters of blood and suffering, yet Calvinistic Scotland 
soon outstripj)ed even the superstitious Papacy in 
her frantic piety, and poui-ed out a sea of innocent 
blood w^hich v/iU stain her pages with an ineffaceable 
stain, for ever and for ever. Yet she was nearly a 
hundred years behind Kome in her zeal, for it was not 
till June, 1563, that she made the subject matter for 
legislation at all, and then the Estates* enacted "that 
' nae person take upon hand to use any manner of 
witchcrafts, sorcery, or necromancy, nor give them- 
selves fiirth to have ony sic craft or knowdedge thereof 
therethrough abusing the people;' also, that *nae 
person seek ony help, response, or consultation, at ony 
sic users or abusers of witchcrafts . . . under pain of 
death.' This is the statute under wliich all the subse- 
quent witch trials took j)lace." But bad as it was 
under the Presbyterians and the Elders, it is true that 
under the Kestoration the witch persecutions in Scot- 
land were even more excessive than during the reign of 
the Covenanters, and that the retm^n of Charles II. 
brought satisfaction and pleasure to the younger women 
only of his dominions, but nothing save torture to the 
old, the poor, and the despised. Eay says that about a 
hundred and twenty witches suffered in the year 1661, the 
year after the Eestoration had brought joy and gladness 
to all loyal hearts ; so that it mattered little whether 
Puritan or Cavalier, Presbyterian or Episcopalian, had 
the upper hand. Superstition was the greatest lord of 

* Chambers' ♦ Domestic Amials.' 



112 THE WITCHES OF SCOTLAND. 

all, and a slavish adherence to a few words fettered 
men down hopelessly to ignorance and wickedness. 

At this time (1661) John Kincaid and John Dick 
were the most notorious prickers ; and they let no one 
escape whom they had the chance of hurting. One 
John Hay, an old man of sixty, and of untarnished 
reputation, fell into Dick's hands, accused of sorcery 
by " a distracted woman," whose words were not worth 
the wind that wafted them. But Dick shaved him, and 
pricked him, and tortured him in all allowable ways, 
then sent him off to Edinburgh, two hundred miles 
away, to be locked up in the Tolbooth, pending further 
proceedings. The case against him was too slight for 
even those times to entertain, and he was liberated on 
his own petition, and a few testimonials : but John 
Dick was not reproved, nor was his zeal thought 
extreme or passionate. 



MISCELLANEOUS. 

Margaret Bryson* quarrelled with her husband about 
the selling of a cow ; she went to the house- door, " and 
there did imprecate that God or the devil might take 
her from her husband ;" which naturally ended in the 
devil's appearing and forcing her into the covenant 
with him that had its final expression at the stake. 

Margaret Hutchison was a witch, too. She laid on 
Hemy Balfour the pains of a child-bed woman, and 
caused such a universal swelling of his body that he 
died thereof ; and she threatened John Boost for calling 
her a witch, and threw a piece of raw flesh against his 

* Law — Sharp's Introduction. 



MISCELLANEOUS. Il3 

house, wliicli the very dogs and cats would not eat; 
and she sent a phigue of cats to John BelFs house, and 
tormented him and his wife by appearing at their 
hearth-side at night, combing her hair: so Margaret 
Hutchison was no better than she should be, and the 
world was well rid of her. 

Isabel Eamsey for her part was convicted of taking 
sixpence from the devil, and entering into a long chat 
with him upon sundry local matters ; and, indeed, she 
herself confessed that he gave her a dollar, which 
turned into a sklaitt stane : for nothing that the devil 
did for these witches ever turned to good, so that one is 
more surprised at their stupidity than offended by their 
guilt. 

Jennet Cock* had an ill name, past all forbearance 
or overlooking. She was never easy unless she was 
after some evil, and the world must positively be quit 
of her. She bewitched William Scott's bonny bay 
horse, worth pounds and pounds of money, and made 
him mad ; and she told a brute who beat her that he 
should live to be hanged, which not very unlikely pre- 
diction was fulfilled ; and she kept company with the 
devil on terms that no honest woman should endure ; 
and she and Jean Dickson, another witch, cured a 
neighbour's child by cutting off a dog's head, with 
which they played some devilish cantrip that healed 
the bairn ; and she it was who made that speech con- 
cerning Christiane Wilson and the gaff of wind ; so 
Jennet Cock was adjudged dangerous to be at large, 
and was put into prison, there to await her trial. And 
she was tried, but, strange to say, acquitted of the 
charges brought against her; she was not let loose 
though, but kept still in durance till a fresh case could 

* DalyeU. 

I 



114 THE WITCHES OF SCOTLAND. 

be completed against her. Jennet Cock was rather 
notorious for her evil eye and power of overlooking, 
and in her dittay is thus charged : — ^' There being an 
outcast betwixt yow and Jeane Forrest, because schoe 
had called yow a witch, yow came to the said Jeane, 
her landlord's house, where she was with some nygh- 
boures, desyreing to make aggriement betwixt yow. 
Ye malitiouslie and bitterlie girneing and gnashing 
your teeth, and beating your hands upon your knies, 
said, ' them that called me a witch ! them that 
called me a witch !' And at that tyme, the said Jeane 
Forrest, her chylde being in good health, on the morne 
the chylde, by your sorceries and witchcraft dyed ; and 
the mother, at the chylde's departour, called out with a 
loud voyce upone her nighbours, saying, * Alace ! that 
ever I had adoe with that witch Janet Cock, for shoe 
has been at my bed syd all this night standing, and I 
could not get red of her : and behold the fruit of it — 
my chylde is dead !* " This deposition was made Sep- 
tember 10, 1661, and surely Jennet Cock never escaped 
the consequences of such a cantrip as this ! 

Marion Grinlaw* and Jean Howison, "tlie survivors 
of ten women and a man who had been imprisoned at 
Musselburgh," petitioned the Council for their release. 
" Some of the rest died of cold and hunger. They 
themselves had lain in durance jorty weeks, and were 
now in a state of extreme misery, altliough nothing 
could he brought against them. Margaret Carvie and 
Barbara Horniman, of Falkland, had in like manner 
been imprisoned at the instance of the magistrates and 
parish minister, had lain six weeks in jail, subjected to 
a great deal of torture by one who takes upon him the 
trial of witches by pricking ; and so great was their 

* Chambers. 



CLOWTS AND THE SEEPENT. 115 

siiiferings that life was become a burden to tliem, not- 
withstanding that they declared their innocence, and 
nothing to the contrary had been sho\^Ti. The Council 
ordered all these women to be liberated :" which was a 
marvellous outstep of humanity, and one for which 
its previous acts could hardly have prepared us. The 
next year it seems to have had a small side-blow of 
rationality. It had become sensible of the vile in- 
humanity of John Kincaid, and thi^ew the wretch into 
prison, then issued a proclamation repudiating the 
seizm*e of suspected persons, which had been made 
illegally," unauthorizedly, and out of only envy and 
covetousness. Nevertheless, it took care to issue 
twelve fresh commissions for trying witches, imme- 
diately after; being chiefly anxious to keep all the 
business in its own hands, and shut the door against any 
outside free lances. John Kincaid lay for nine weeks in 
jail, then was liberated only on condition that he would 
prick no more without warrant. He sent up a whining 
petition, setting forth that he was an old man, and if 
confined longer might be brought to mortal sickness ; 
so to avert this terrible catastrophe, the old sinner had 
his Kberty given to him again : he ought to have had 
instead the doom of the mui'derer for blood-money ! 



CLOWTS AND THE SEEPENT.* 

In the parish of Innerkip, on March 4, 1662, Marie 
Lament, a "young Woman of the adge of Eighteen 
Yeares," offered herself for voluntary confession. She 
said that five years ago Kattrein Scot taught her to 
take kyes' milk. She told her to go out in misty 

* Law's ' Memorials ' — Sharp's Introductory Notice. 



116 THE WITCHES OF SCOTLAND. 

mornings with a hair rope (harrie tedder), which she 
was to draw over the mouth of a mug, saying, " In 
God's name, God send us milk, God sent it, and mickle 
of it." By which means she and Kattrein got much of 
their neighbours' milk which they made into butter 
and cheese. Also she said, that two years and a half 
since, the devil came to them at Kattrein Scot's house, 
where many of them were present, and gave them all 
wine to drink and wheat bread to eat, and they danced 
and were very merry, the devil shaking hands with 
them, and she delivering herself over to him in bap- 
tism. And at her baptism she was given the name 
of "Clowts," and bid to call the devil "Serpent." 
Further, " Shee confessed that at that sam tym the 
devil nipit her upon the right syd, qlk was very painful 
for a tym, but yairefter he strait it it with his hand, and 
healed it; this she confesses to be his mark." At a 
certain meeting which she spoke of, when she and the 
rest w^ent to raise storms to hinder the Killing fishery, 
the devil came to them in the likeness of a brown dog, 
but she and Kattrein were as cats, and in this form they 
ran into Allan Orr's house and took a bite of a herring 
lying in a barrel. They then put it back again, and 
Allan Orr's wife, afterwards finishing the herring, took 
heavy disease, and died. The reason of this malicious 
act was, that Allan Orr had put Margaret Holm (one of 
the cats) out of her house, and this was the manner in 
Tshich she chose to be revenged — " threitening in ^vrath, 
that he and his wife sould not be long together." 
Many other things did she confess : one of which w^as 
how the devil once " convoyed her home in the dawing ; 
and when shee was com near the house wherein she was 
a servant, her master saw a waff of him as he went away 
from her." Another time she and some other witches 



( 



THE WITCHES OF AULDEARNE. 117 

met at the back gate of Ardgowand, wliere his Cloutie- 
ship appeared in the likeness of a black man with cloven 
feet, directing them to take white sand and cast it 
about the gates of Ardgowand, and about the minister's 
house ; and while they were about the business he 
turned them into the likeness of cats, by shaking his 
hands above them. And at another time they went to 
cast the longston into the sea, to cause storms and ship- 
wrecks, and the devil kissed them as they went away, 
apparently better pleased than ordinarily with his 
Clowts and Kats. All these things did poor Marie 
Lamont, aged eighteen, confess to the minister and 
Laird of Innerkip ; and they, not knowing the virtue of 
purgatives and port wine, nor understanding the value 
of rest and silence, took the poor young soul at her 
word, and found her guilty of all the crimes and follies 
with which a diseased body, and a mind overset and 
charged, had prompted her to accuse herself. 
And now we come to 



THE WITCHES OF AULDEARNE :* 

and Isobell Gowdie's marvellous confessions : still in 
A.D. 1662. Isobell was neither pricked nor tortured be- 
fore she entered on her singular history of circumstantial 
lies. She was probably a mere lunatic, whose ravings 
ran in the popular groove, and who was not so much 
deceiving, as self-deceived by insanity. The assize 
which tried her was composed of highly respectable 
people, and she seems to have been only encouraged to 
rave, not forced to lie. She began by stating that one 
day, fifteen years ago, as she was going between " the 

* Pitcaim. 



118 THE AVITCHES OF SCOTLAND. 

towns " or farmsteads of Drumdewin and the Heads, 
she met the devil, who spoke to her and invited her to 
meet him that night at the parish church of Auldearne. 
She promised that she would, and accordingly she went, 
and he baptized her by the name of "Janet," and 
accepted her service. Margaret Brodie held her while 
she denied her Christian baptism ; and then the devil 
marked her on the shoulder, sucking out the blood 
which he "spouted" into his hand, then sprinkled it 
on her head, saying, " I baptize thee, Janet, in my own 
name !" But first he had put one hand on the crown of 
her head, and the other on the soles of her feet, while 
she made over to him all that lay betwixt, giving her- 
self body and soul into his keeping. He was in the 
Eeader's desk while all this took place, appearing as a 
" mickle, black, hairy man '^ reading out of a black 
book; so Isobell was henceforth Janet in the witch 
world, and was one of the most devoted of her covin ; 
for they were divided into covins or bands, she said, 
and placed under the leadership of proper officers. 
John Young was the officer of her covin, and the num- 
ber composing it was thirteen. She and others of her 
band took Breadley's corn from off his land. They took 
an unchristened child which they had raised out of 
its grave, parings of their nails, ears of all sorts of 
grain, and cole-wort leaves, all chopped very fine and 
small, and mixed up well together ; and this charm 
they buried on his land, whereby they got all the 
strength of his corn and goods to themselves, and 
parted them among the covin. Another time they 
yoked a plough of paddocks (toads). The devil held it, 
and John Young drove it : it was drawn by toads in- 
stead of oxen, the traces were of quickens (dog-grass), 
the coulter was a riglen's horn (ram's horn), so was the 



THE WITCHES OF AULDEARNE. 119 

sock ; and tliey went two several times about the field, 
all the covin following and praying to the devil to give 
them tlie fruit of that land, and that only thistles and 
briars might grow on it for the master's use. So Breadley 
had trouble enough to work his land, and when it was 
worked he got no good out of it, but only weeds and 
thorns, while the covin made their bread of his labour. 

When asked how she and her sister witches managed 
to leave their husbands o' nights, she said that, when 
it was their Sabbath nights, they used to put besoms or 
three-legged stools in bed beside their husbands; so 
that if these deluded men should wake before their 
return, they might believe they had their wives safe as 
usual. The besoms and three-legged stools took the 
right form of the women, and prevented a too early 
discovery. To go to these Sabbaths they put a straw 
between their feet, crying " Horse and Hattock in the 
Devil's name !" and then they would fly away, just as 
straws in the wind. Any kind of straw would do, and 
they who saw them floating about in the whirlwind, and 
did not sanctify themselves, could be shot dead at the 
wdtches' pleasure, and their bodies remained with them 
as horses, and small as straws. 

These night meetings always ended with a supper; 
the Maiden of the Covin being placed next to the devil, 
as he was partial to young, plump, blooming witches, 
and did not care much for the " rigwoodie hags," save 
to beat and belabour them. .And after they had gotten 
their meat they would say as a grace — 

" We eat this meat in the devil's name, 
With sorrow and sich (sighs) and mickle shame ; 
We shall destroy both house and hald ; 
Both sheep and nolt intil the fauld, 
Little good shall come to the fore. 
Of all the rest of the little store." 



120 THE WITCHES OF SCOTLAND. 

And when supper was done, each witch would look 
steadily upon their "grisly" president and say, bowing 
low, " We thank thee, our Lord, for this !" But it was 
not much to thank him for in general ; for the old adage 
seems to have been pretty nearly kept to, and the 
cooks, at least, not to speak of the meat, to be of the 
very lowest description. The poor witches never got 
more from the devil than what they might have had at 
home ; which was one more added to the many proofs 
that the mind cannot travel beyond its own sphere of 
knowledge, and that even hallucinations are bounded 
by experience, and clairvoyance by the past actual 
vision. 

Then Isobell went to the Downie Hills, to see the 
gude wichtis who had wrought Bessie Dunlop and 
Alesoun Peirsoun such sad mishap. The hill side 
opened and she went in. Here she got meat more 
than she could eat, which was a rare thing for her to do 
in those days, and seemed to her one of the most 
noticeable things of the visit. The Queen of Faerie 
was bravely clothed in white linen, and white and brown 
clothes, but she was nothing like the glorious creature 
who bewitched Thomas of Ercildoun with her winsom 
looks and golden hair ; and the king was a braw man, 
well favoured and broad faced ; just an ordinary man 
and woman of the better classes, buxom, brave, and 
comely, as Isobell Gowdie and her like would natu-: 
rally take to be the ultimate perfection of humanity. 
But it was not all sunshine and delight even in the 
hill of Faerie, for there were *^elf bullis rowting and 
skoylling " up and down, which frightened poor Isobell, 
as well as her auditory : for here she was interrupted 
and bidden on another track. She then went on to 
say that when they took away any cow's milk they 



THE WITCHES OF AULDEARNE. 12t 

did so by twining and platting a rope the wrong way 
and in the devil's name, drawing the tether in 
between the cow's hinder feet, and out between her 
fore feet. The only way to get back the milk was to 
cut the rope. When they took away the strength of 
any one's ale in favour of themselves or others, they 
used to take a little quantity out of each barrel, in the 
devil's name (they never forgot this formula), and then 
put it into the ale they wished to strengthen ; and no 
one had power to keep their ale from them, save those 
who had well sanctified the brewing. Also she and 
others made a clay picture of a little child, which was 
to represent all the male children of the Laird of Parkis. 
John Taylor brought home the clay in his " plaid 
newk" (corner), his wife brake it very small like 
meal, and sifted it, and poured water in among it in the 
devil's name, and worked it about like rye porridge 
(" vrought it werie sore, lyk rye-bowt") and made it 
into a picture of the Laird of Parkis' son. " It haid 
all the pairtis and merkis of a child, such as heid, eyes, 
nose, handis, foot, mowth, and little lippes. It wanted 
no mark of a child ; and the handis of it folded down 
by its sydes." This precious image, which was like a 
lump of dough or a skinned sucking pig, was put to the 
fire till it shrivelled and became red as a coal ; they put 
it to the fire every other day, and by the wicked power 
enclosed in this charm all the male children of the Laird 
of Parkis would suffer, unless it were broken up. She 
and the rest went in and out theii' neighbours' houses, 
sometimes as jackdaws, sometimes as hares, cats, &c., 
and ate and drank of the best ; and they took away the 
virtue of all tilings left " unsained ;" and each had their 
own powers. " Bot," said IsobeU, sorrowfully, " now I 
haw no power at aU." In another confession she told 



122 THE WITCHES OF SCOTLAND. 

all about her Covin. There were thirteen in each, and 
every person had a nickname, and a spirit to wait on 
her. She could not remember the names of all, but 
she gave what she could. Swein clothed in grass green 
waited on Margaret Wilson, called Pickle-nearest-the- 
wind : Korie in yellow waited on Bessie Wilson, or 
Throw-the-corn-yard : the Eoaring Lion in seagreen 
waited on Isobell Nichol, or Bessie Kule : Mak Hector, 
a young-like devil, clothed in grass green, was appro- 
priated by Jean Martin, daughter to Margaret Wilson 
(Pickle-nearest-the-wind), the Maiden of the Covin and 
called Over-the-Dyke-with-it ; this name given to her 
because the devil always takes the maiden in his hand 
next him, and when he would leap they both cry out, 
" Over the dyke with it!" Eobert the Kule in sad dun, 
a commander of the spirits, waited on Margaret Brodie, 
Thief-of-hell-wait-upon-herself : he waited also on Bessie 
Wilson, otherwise Tln-ow-the-corn-yard : Isobell's own 
spirit was the Ked Kiever, and he was ever clothed in 
black: the eighth spii'it was Eobert the Jakes, aged, 
and clothed in dun, *' ane glaiked gowked spirit," and 
he waited on Bessie Hay, otherwise Able-and-Stout : the 
ninth was Laing, serving Elspet Nishie, re-named Bessie 
Bauld ; the tenth was Thomas, a faerie : — but there 
Isobell's questioners stopped her, afraid to hear aught of 
the " guide wychtis," who might be then among them, 
iujm^ing those who offended them to death. So no more 
information was given of the spirits of the Covin. She 
then told them that to raise a wind they took a rag of 
cloth which they wetted, then knocked on a stone with 
a beetle (a flat piece of wood) saying thrice — 

" I knok this ragg wpon this stane, 
To raise the wiud in the Divelle's name ; 
It sail not lye, vntil I please againe !" 



THE WITCHES OF AULDEARNE. 123 

When the wind was to be laid, they di'ied the rag, 
and said thrice — 

" We lay the vrind in tlie divellis name, 
It sail not rise qubill we lyk to raise it again !" 

And if the wind would not cease the instant after they 
said this, they called to theii- spiiit : " Thieffe ! tliieffe ! 
conjure the wind and caws it to lye !" As for elf-aiTOW 
heads, the devil shapes them with his own hand, and 
tlien delivers them to eK boys who sharpen and trim 
them with a thing like a packing-needle : and when 
Isobell was in elf-land she saw the boys sharpening and 
trimming them. Those who trimmed them, she said, 
are little ones, hollow and hump-backed, and speak 
gruffly like. When the devil gave the arrows to the 
witches he used to say — 

" Shoot these in my name, 
And they sail not goe heall hame." 

And when the witches shoot them, which they do by 
" spanging " them from their thumb nails, they say — 

" I shoot yon man in the devillis name. 
He sail nott win heall hame ! 
And this salbe alswa trw, 
Thair sail not be an bitt of him on liew."* 

Isobell had great talent for rhymes. She told the 
court how, when the witches wanted to transform them- 
selves into the shape of hare or cat, they said thrice 
over — always thrice — 

"I sail goe intill ane haire. 
With sorrow, and sych, and mickle caire ; 
And I sail goe in the divellis name. 
Ay whill I com hom againe." 

Once Isobell said this rhyme, when Patrik Papley's 
* On life : alive. 



124 THE WITCHES OF SCOTLAND. 

servants were going to labour. They had their dogs 
with them, and the dogs hunted her — she in the form 
of a hare. Very hard pressed, and weary, she had just 
time to run to her own house, get behind the chest, and 
repeat — 

" Hair, hair, God send the caire, 
I am in a hairis likeness now. 
But I sail be a woman ewin now ; 
Hiiir, hair, God send the caire!" 

Else the dogs would have worried her, and posterity 
have lost her confessions. Many other doggrels did 
Isobell teach her judges ; but they were all of the same 
character as those already given : scanty rhymes in 
the devil's name, when they were not actual para- 
phrases of the mass book. Some were for healing and 
some for striking; some in the name of God and all 
the saints, others in the devil's name, boldly and 
nakedly used ; but both equally damnable in the eyes 
of the judges, and equally worthy of death. The elf- 
arrows spoken of before were of great use. The devil 
gave them to his covin and they shot men and women 
dead, right and left. Sometimes they missed, as when 
Isobell shot at the Laird of Park as he was crossing 
the burn, and missed, for which Bessie Hay gave her a 
great cuff: also Margaret Brodie, when she shot at Mr. 
Harie Forbes, the minister at Auldearne, he being by 
the standing stanes ; whereupon she asked if she should 
shoot again, but the devil answered, " Not ! for we wold 
nocht get his lyf at that tym." Finding the elf-arrows 
useless against Mr. Harie Forbes, they tried charms and 
incantations once when he was sick. They made a bag, 
into which they put the flesh, entrails, and gall of a 
toad, a hare's liver, barley grains, nail pairiugs, and bits 



1 



THE WITCHES OF AULDEARNE, 125 '■^■ 

of rag, steeping all in water, while Satan stood over 
them, saying — and they repeating after him — 

"He is lying in his bed, and he is seik and sair, 
Let him lye in till that bedd monthes two and dayes thrie mair ! 
He sail lye in till his bed, he salbe seik and sair, 
He sail lye in till his bedd, monthes two and dayes thrie mair !" 

WTien they said these words they were all on their 
knees with their hair about their shoulders and eyes, 
holding up their hands to the devil, beseeching him to 
destroy Mr. Harry ; and then it was decided to go into 
his chamber and swing the bag over him. Bessie Hay — 
Able-and'-Stout — undertook this office, and she went to 
his room, being intimate with him, the bag in her hands 
and her mind set on siaying him by its means; but 
there were some worthy persons with him at the time, 
so Bessie did no harm, only swung a few drops on him 
which did not kill him. They had a hard taskmaster in 
the devil — Black Johnnie, as they used to call him 
among themselves. But he used to overhear them, 
and would suddenly appear in the midst of them, 
saying, " I ken weill anewgh what ye wer saying of 
me/' and then would beat and buffet them sore. He 
was always beating them, specially if they were absent 
from any of the meetings, or if they forgot anything he 
had told them to do. Alexander Elder was being con- 
tinually tlirashed. He was very soft and could never 
defend himself in the least, but would cry and scream 
when the devil scourged him. The women had more 
pluck. Margaret Wilson — Pickle-nearest- the- wind — 
would defend herself finely, throwing up her hands to 
keep the strokes from her ; and Bessie Wilson — Throw- 
the-corn-yard — " would speak crusty with her tongue 
and would be belling against him soundly." He used 
to beat them all up and down with scourges and sharp 



126 THE WITCHES OF SCOTLAND. 

cords, they like naked gliosis" crying, " Pity ! pity ! 
mercy ! mercy, om^ Lord !" But he would have neither 
pity nor mercy, but would grin at them like a dog, and 
as if he would swallow them up. He would give them 
most beautiful money, at least to look at ; but m fom-- 
and-twenty hours it would be all gone, or changed to 
mere dirt and rubbish. The devil wore sometimes boots 
and sometimes shoes, but ever his feet were cloven, 
and ever his colour black. This, with some small 
variations, was the sum of what Isobell Gowdie confessed 
in her four depositions taken between the 13th of April 
and 27th of May in the year of grace 1662. 

Janet Braidhead, spous to John Taylor, followed 
next. Her first confession, made on the 14th of April, 
set forth how that she had known nothing of witch- 
craft until her husband and his mother, Elspeth Nishie, 
had taught her ; her first lesson from them being 
the making of some " drugs " wliich were to charm 
away the fruit and corn, and kill the cattle, of one 
John Hay in the Mure. After that, she was taken to 
the kirk at Auldearne, where her husband presented 
her for the devil's baptism and marking, which were 
done in the usual manner. She also gave evidence of 
the clay picture which was to destroy all the male 
children of the Laird of Park ; and she gave a long 
list of the frequenters of the Sabbaths, including some 
of the most respectable inhabitants of the place ; and 
in many other things she confirmed Isobell Gowdie's 
depositions, specially in all regarding the devil and 
the unequivocal nature of their connection with him, 
which was put into plain and unmistakable language 
enough. 

We are not told the ultimate fate of Isobell Gowdie 
and Janet Braidhead, but they had confessed enough 



THE SECRET SINS OF MAJOR WEIR. 127 

to burn half Scotland, and it is not likely that they 
escaped the doom assigned to their order. 



THE SECRET SINS OF MAJOR WEIR.* 

On the 4th of April, 1670, one Major Thomas Weir, 
an old man of seventy, expiated his crimes on the 
Gallowlie of Edinburgh. A bad man, surely ; a cant- 
ing, loose-lived hypocrite, who made his puritanism 
the cloak for his secret crimes, serving sin with his 
body in .daily and most detestable service, while his 
lips spoke only of zeal to God and the soul's devoutest 
exercise. Still, it was a terrible fate for nothing more 
heinous than an unclean life ; a purification by fire in 
truth, but not for the sanctification of souls. Perhaps he 
would have got off altogether, had he not been charged 
with witchcraft. Incest and the foulest vices were bad 
enough, but witchcraft was worse. Yet no intelligible 
charge of sorcery was brought against this man save 
the fact that he got the love of all manner of women, 
poor and old though he was ; and the testimony of a 
frightened woman who gave a rambling account of 
shapes, and lights, and women, all gathered down in 
Stinking-close, near to where the major lived; all of 
w^hich were, of course, phantoms, spectres, or devils, 
conjured up by his magical and devilish arts. This, 
and the frantic saying of his poor old sister, when 
she heard of his death, that if they had burnt his staff 
they had destroyed his power, formed about the sum 
of the witchcraft evidence against him. He was ar- 
rested on his own confession. Unable to bear the 
weight of his secret vices, he gave himself up to the 

* Cliaiabers. Sinclair. Various tracts. 



128 THE WITCHES OF SCOTLAND. 

authorities, who at first were disposed to think him 
mad, but who afterwards, reporting him sane and col- 
lected enough, set him on his trial. After he had once 
spoken he would say no more, would make no defence 
and no further confession : he would not pray, he would 
not appeal to God. Like a beast he had lived, like a 
beast he would die, and " since he was going to the 
devil," he said, " he did not wish to anger him." He 
would have no paltering with an outraged God by the 
way ; so the fire and the faggot came as the culmina- 
tion of a life which in its mildest phase was infamous, 
but which belonged to no lawful tribunal of man to 
punish. 

If he died sullenly and in mute and dumb despair, 
his sister's anguish found wild and desperate expression. 
She told her judges all about her horrible life with him, 
and how he had been long given up to sorcery and 
magic, as well as to things not now to be mentioned ; 
and how his power lay in that staff of his which had 
been burnt along with him. That thornwood staff, 
with its crooked head and carved figures like satyrs 
running through, seems to have heavily burdened the 
poor creature's mind, for she told her judges that when 
she wished to plague her brother she would hide it, 
and give it back to him only when he threatened to 
reveal her nameless infamy if she did not restore it. 
On the morning of her execution she said that she 
would expiate the most shameful life that had ever 
been lived by dying the most shameful death ; but no 
one knew exactly what she meant. When she came to 
the place of execution — she was mercifully hung — she 
began to talk wildly of the Broken Covenant, and 
exhort the people back to their old faith, and then she 
attempted to throw off all her clothes that she might 



THE SECRET SINS OF MAJOR WEIR. 129 

die " naked and ashamed." This was the lowest depth 
of degradation of which her crazed old brain could 
conceive, and was what she meant in the morning when 
alluding to the manner of her death. The executioner 
had to struggle mightily with her before he was able to 
overmaster her, she smiting him on the cheek the while ; 
but at last he flung her " open-faced " on the ground, and 
threw some linen cloths over her ; but " her hands not 
being tyed when she was throwen over, she laboured to 
recover hhselfe, and put in her head betwixt two of 
the steps of the leather, and keiped that powster for a 
tyme, till she was put from itt." It is curious to mark 
the little bit of sanity in all this mournful lunacy, 
when the famiKar things of life were spoken of. She 
had always been a great spinner, and the fame now 
went abroad that the devil had helped her in this. 
Asked if it was not so, she at the first denied disdain- 
fully ; use only and industry, she said, had made her 
so deft at her work, and the devil had done nothing for 
her ; but afterwards she maundered off into some non- 
sense about her yarn, and how her distaff was often 
found full when she had left it empty ; and how the 
weaver could never weave the thread spun from this 
yarn, which, of course, was " devil's dust " of the true 
kind. She was mad enough, the wretched being, and 
could not fail to trip if stones were laid in her path. 
But her first instincts respecting her e very-day occu- 
pation were right, and are singularly illustrative of 
some of the phenomena of madness, and of how inti- 
mately with one's life is interwoven common sense, 
even in the fibres of a diseased brain. She said further 
that she was persuaded " her mother was a witch, for 
the secretest thing that either I myself or any of the 
family could do, when once a mark appeared upon her 

K 



130 THE WITCHES OF SCOTLAND. 

brow, she could tell it tliem, though done at a great 
distance ! Being demanded what sort of a mark it 
was, she answered, * I have some such like mark myself 
when I please, on my forehead.' Whereupon she of- 
fered to uncover her head for visible satisfaction ; the 
minister refusing to behold it, and forbidding any dis- 
covery, was earnestly requested by some spectators to 
allow the freedom : he yielded. She put back her 
head-dress, and, seeming to frown, there was an exact 
horse-shoe, shaped for nails, in her wrinkles — terrible 
enough, I assure you, to the stoutest beholder." Her 
further confessions were curious, involving, as they did, 
a visit from a tall woman who had one child at her back 
and one or two at her feet; and who came to her, 
wanting her to speak to the Queen of Fairy, and to 
strike and do battle with the said queen on her behalf. 
The next day came " ane little woman," with a piece of 
a tree, or the root of some herb, and she told her that 
so long as she kept the same she should do well, and 
should attain all she might desire. So she spun at her 
yarn, and found more yarn on the " pirn " than she 
thought to find ; which frightened her. This took place 
when she " keeped a school at Dalkeith, and teached 
childering." She also rambled on about a fiery chariot 
in which she and her brother had paid visits, and of his 
mysterious visitors and his thornwood staff ; and when 
nothing more was to be got out of her she was hung, 
and the world was all the cleaner for the loss of 
so much folly and wickedness from out the general 
mass. 



^ 



131 



THE DUMB GIRL OF POLLOK.* 

On the 14tli of October, Sir George Maxwell, of 
PoUok, and his household were much agitated and 
disturbed. He had been taken suddenly and danger- 
ously ill, with pains which read like the pains of 
pleurisy; and though he got partially well, had stiU. 
some awkward symptoms remaining. A young deaf 
and dumb girl, of unknown origin, signified that "there 
is a woman whose son has broke his fruit yeard that did 
prick him in the side." This was found to mean that 
Jennet Mathie, relict of John Stewart, under-miller in 
Schaw Mill, had formed a wax picture with pins in its 
side, which "Dumby " said was to be found in her house 
in a hole behind the fire, and which she further offered 
to bring to them at PoUok, provided certain two of the 
men servants might accompany her to protect her. The 
young daughters of Sir George did not believe the story, 
but the two servants, Laurence Pollok and Andrew Mar- 
tine, professed themselves converts, and insisted on seeing 
the thing to an end. So they went to Jennet's house, 
and into the kitchen, all standing on the floor near the 
fire ; " when little Dumby comes quickly by, slips her 
hand into a hole behind the fii-e, and puts into Andrew 
Martine's hand, beneath his cloak, a wax pictm-e with 
two pins in it," that in the right side very long, and 
that in the left shorter : which corresponded with the 
severity of the laird's pains. The pictui^e was brought 
to Sir George ; so was Jennet Mathie, who was appre- 
hended on the spot and whom Sir George then sent 
to prison. When questioned, she denied all knowledge 
of the picture or the pins, and said it was the work of 

* Chambers. Dickie. Tracts. 



132 THE WITCHES OF SCOTLAND. 

the dumb girl ; but on its being shown that her soL 
Hugh had once robbed Sir George's orchard — which was 
what Dumby meant by " broke his fruit yeard " — and 
that Sir George, when told that he was no longer in 
Pollokland, but had gone to Darnlie, had said, " I hope 
my fingers may be long enough to reach him in Darn- 
lie " — these circumstances were held quite sufficient 
evidence that the Stewart family would do the laird all 
the mischief they could. The prosecution wanted no 
stronger proof, and the affair went on. 

Jennet was obstinate, and would confess nothing; 
upon which they searched her and found the devil's 
mark. After this. Sir George got better for a short 
space, but soon the pains returned, and then the dumb 
girl said that John Stewart, Jennet's eldest son, had 
made another clay image, four days since, and that it 
was now in his house beneath the bolster among the bed 
straw. So she and the servants went there again, and 
sure enough they found it; but as it was only lately 
made, it was soft and broke in their hands. John said 
simply he did not know who had ]3ut it there ; but he 
and his young sister Annabel were apprehended: and 
the next day Annabel confessed. 

She said, that on the 4th of January last past, while the 
clay picture was being formed, a black gentleman had 
come into her mother's house, accompanied by Bessie 
Weir, IMarjorie Craig, Margaret Jackson, and her own 
brother Jolm. T\Tien confronted with John she wavered, 
but John was no nearer release for that. He was searched, 
and many marks were found on him ; and when found the 
spell of silence was broken, and he confessed his paction 
with the devil as openly as his sister, giving up as their 
accomplices the same women as those she had named. 
Of these, Margaret Jackson, aged fourscore or so, was the 



THE DUMB GIEL OF POLLOK. 133 

only one to confess ; but as she had many witch marks 
she could not hope for mercy, so might as well make a 
clean breast of it at once. On the 17th of January a 
portion of clay was found under Jennet Mathie's bolster, 
in her prison at Paisley. This time it w^as a woman's 
portrait, for Sir George had recovered by now, and the 
witches were against the whole family equally. On the 
27th Annabel made a fuller deposition. She said that 
last harvest the devil, as a black man, had come to her 
mother's house, and required her, the deponent, to give 
lierself to him ; promising that she should want for 
nothing good if she did. She, being enticed by her 
mother and Bessie Weir, did as was desired — putting one 
hand on the crown of her head, and another on the soles 
of her feet, and giving over to him all that lay between ; 
whereupon her mother promised her a new coat, and the 
devil made her officer at their several meetings. He 
gave her, too, such a nip on the arm that she was sore 
for half an hour after, and gave her a new name — 
Annippy, or an Ape according to Law. Her mother's 
devil-name was Lands-lady; Bessie Weir was called 
Sopha ; Marjorie Craig was Eigeru ; Margaret Jackson 
Locas ; John Stewart, Jonas ; and they were all present 
at the making of the clay image which was to doom Sir 
George to death. They made it of clay, then bound it 
on a spit and turned it before the fire, " Sopha " crying 
"Sir George Maxwell! Sir George Maxwell!" w^hich 
was repeated by them all. Another time, she said, 
there was a meeting, when the devil was dressed in 
" black cloathes and a blew band, and white hand cuifs, 
with hoggers on his feet, and that his feet were cloven." 
The black man stuck the pins into the picture, and his 
name was Ejoall, or J. Jewell. For the devil delighted 
in giving himself various names, as when he caused him- 



134 THE WITCHES OF SCOTLAND. 

self to be called Peter Drysdale, by Catherine Sands 
and Laurie Moir, and Peter Saleway by others. 

John now followed suit. He confessed to his own 
baptism ; to the hoggers on the black man's legs, who 
had no shoes, and spoke in a voice hollow and ghousty ; 
to the making the clay image ; and to his new name of 
Jonas. On the 15th of February, 1677, John Stewart, 
Annabel Stewart, and Margaret Jackson all adhered to 
these depositions, but Jennet and Bessie and Margerie 
denied them. Jennet's feet were fixed in stocks, so that 
she might not do violence to her own life : and one day 
her gaoler declared that he had found her bolster, which 
the night before was laid at least six yards from the 
stocks, now placed beneath her; the stocks being so 
heavy that two of the strongest men in the country 
could hardly have carried them six yards. He asked 
her " how she had win to the bolster," and she answered 
that she had crept along the floor of the room, dragging 
the stocks with her. Before the court she said that she 
had got one foot out of the hole, and had drawn the 
stocks with her, " a thing altogether impossible." Then 
John and Annabel exhorted their mother to confess, re- 
minding her of all the meetings which she had had with 
the devil in her own house, and that " a summer's day 
would not be sufficient to relate what passages had been 
between the devil and her." But Jennet Mathie was a 
stern, brave, high-hearted Scotch woman, and would not 
seal her sorrow with a lie. " Nothing could prevail with 
her obdured and hardened heart," so she and all, save 
young Annabel, were burnt ; and when she was bound 
to the stake, the spectators saw after a while a black, 
pitchy ball foam out of her mouth, which, after the fire 
was kindled, grew to the size of a walnut, and flew out 
into sparks like squibs. This was the devil leaving her. 



THE DUMB GIEL OF POLLOK. 135 

As for Bessie Weir, or Sopha, the devil left her when 
she was executed, in the form of a raven ; for so he 
owned and dishonoured his chosen ones. 

" The dunibe gui, Jennet Douglas, now speaks well, 
and knows Latine, which she never learned, and dis- 
covers things past !" says Sinclau'. But she still fol- 
lowed her old trade. She had mesmeric visions, and 
was evidently a " sensitive ;" and some of the people be- 
hoved in her, as inspired and divine, and some came, 
perhaps mockingly, to test her. But they generally got 
the worst off, and were glad to leave her alone again. 
One woman came and asked her " ' how she came to the 
knowledge of so many things,' but the young wench 
shifted her, by asking the woman's name. She told her 
name. Says the other, ' Are there any other in Griasgow 
of that name ?' * No ! ' sayes the woman. * Then,' said the 
girle, ' you are a witch !' Says the other, ' Then are you 
a devil !' The girl answers * The devil doth not reveal 
witches ; but I know you to be one, and I know your 
practices too.' On which the poor woman ran away in 
great confusion ;" as, indeed, she might — such an accu- 
sation as this being quite sufficient to sign her death- 
warrant. To another woman who came to see and 
question her, she said the same thing ; taking her 
arm, and showing the landlord a secret mark which she 
told him the woman had got from the devil. " The poor 
woman much ashamed ran home, and a little while after 
she came out and told her neighbours that what Jennet 
Douglas had said of her was true, and earnestly en- 
treated that they might show so much to the magis- 
trates, that she might be apprehended, otherwise the 
devil says she will make me kill myself." The neigh- 
bours were wise enough to think her mad, as she was, 
and took her home ; but the next day she was found 



136 THE WITCHES OF SCOTLAND. 

drowned in the Clyde ; fear and despair had killed her 
before the stake-wood had had time to root and ripen. 
The dumb girl herself was afterwards carried before the 
great council at Edinburgh, imprisoned, scourged 
through the town, and then banished to " some forraigne 
Plantation," whence she reappears no more to vex her 
generation. God forgive her! She has passed long 
years ago to her account, and may her guilty soul be 
saved, and all its burning blood-stains cleansed and 
assoiked ! 



LIZZIE MUDIE AND HER VICTIMS.* 

The year after Sir George Maxwell's affair there was 
another case at Haddington which gave full employment 
to the authorities. Margaret Kirkwood, a woman of 
some means, hanged herself one Sunday morning dm-ing 
church time. Her servant, Lizzie Mudie, who w^as at 
kirk like a good Christian, suddenly called out, to the 
great disturbance of the congregation. She began re- 
peating all the numbers — one, two, three, four, &c. — till 
she came to fifty-nine ; then she stopped and cried, " The 
turn is done !" When it was afterwards found that Mar- 
garet Kirkwood had hung herself just about that 
moment, and that her age was fifty-nine, Lizzie Mudie 
was taken up and searched. She was found a witch by 
her marks, and soon after confessed, delating five women 
and one man as her accomplices. But the five women 
and the one man were obstinate, and would not say that 
they were guilty, though they were pricked and searched 
and marks found on them. Lord Fountainhall was 
present at the searching of the man, and he gives an 

* Law's ' Memorials.' 



BRAVE OLD KATHERINE LIDDELL. 



13- 



account of it : " I did see the man's body searched and 
pricked in two sundry places, one at the ribs and the 
other at his shoulder. He seemed to find no pain, but 
no blood followed. The marks were blewish, very small, 
and had no protuberancy above the skin. The pricker 
said there were three sorts of witches' marks : the horn 
mark, it was very hard; the breiff mark, it was very 
little ; and the feeling mark, in which they had sense 
and pain." " I remained very dissatisfied with this way 
of trial," says my Lord farther on, " as most fallacious ; 
and the fellow could give me no account of the prin- 
ciples of his ai't, but seemed to be a drunken, foolish 
rogue." One of Lizzie Mudie's five victims was an old 
woman of eighty, named ITarion Phinn, who had always 
borne a good character, " never being stained with the 
least ignominy, far less with the abominable crime of 
witchcraft." But though she petitioned the council to 
free her on her own caution, she was kept hand-fast and 
foot-bound in gaol, being far too dangerous in the help- 
lessness and feebleness of her eighty years to be let out 
with the chance of bewitching mankind to death. This 
she could do, and work all other miracles; but she 
could not help herself to sunlight and liberty. 



BRAVE OLD KATHERINE LIDDELL.* 

Li 1678 two old women of Prestonpans were burnt. 
They made a voluntary confession, and accused a few 
more of their craft. These in their turn accusing others, 
in a very short time seventeen unhappy creatures were 
collected together, all chai'ged with the sin of witchcraft, 
intercommuning with the devil, voluntary transformation 

* Chambers. 



138 THE WITCHES OF SCOTLAND. 

into ravens, cats, crows, &c., with all the other stock 
pieces of the hallucination. The judges seemed inclined 
to favour them, and Sir John Clerk of Pennycuik, when 
desired to sit on the commission appointed to try the 
seven given up by the parish of Loanhead, declined, 
"alleging drily that he did not feel himself warlock 
(that is, conjuror) enough to be judge upon such an in- 
quisition." These poor creatures had deep sleeps, during 
which no pinching would awake them ; but though the 
judges saw them when in these sleeps, and heard their 
confessions as to where they had been and what they 
had been doing during the time, they were regarded as 
diabolical trances, and dealt with accordingly. Nine of 
the East Lothian women were burnt, and the " seven of 
Loanhead were reserved for future procedure." Among 
the accused was one Katherine Liddell, a strong-minded, 
stout-hearted, old widow, who feared no man, spoke 
her mind freely, and had a body with nerves like 
cart ropes and muscles of iron. The bailie of Preston- 
pans, John Kutherford, had caused her to be seized in 
the late panic, and, though there was nothing against 
her, he had her pricked in various parts of her body " to 
the great effusion of her blood, and whereby her skin is 
raised and her body highly swelled, and she is in danger 
of life." A drummer, two salt-makers, and others, 
assisted him in this torture ; for John Kincaid had found 
zealous followers: and any man with a peculiar tem- 
perament, and a heart hardened by superstition against 
suffering, might take on himself the office of pricker to 
his own soul's satisfaction, and the torture and murder 
of his fellow-creatures. Katherine Liddell, besides being 
actively tortured, was kept without sleep for six days 
and nights, but the stout old woman would confess 
nothing. On the contrary, she presented a petition to the 



BEAVE OLD KATHERINE LIDDELL. 139 

Council, charging John Rutherford and the rest with 
" defamation, false imprisonment, and open and manifest 
oppression," and demanded vengeance and restitution in 
loud and vigorous terms. The Council, unaccustomed to 
this sort of thino- and used only to victims as tame as 
they were considered powerful, soon released her, drop- 
ping her like hot iron, and condemning Eutherford and 
his associates as too hasty and ill-advised : then, some- 
what further redeemed themselves by an unusual act of 
justice and common sense, in sentencing David Cowan, 
"pricker" — the one who had been the most active of 
her tormentors — to be confined during pleasure in the 
Tolbooth. 

Katherine Liddell did not do much good to her 
afflicted sisterhood, though she had helped herself: for 
that same year, in August,* "the devil had a great 
meeting of witches in Loudian, where, among others, 
was a warlock who formerly had been admitted to the 
ministrie in the Presbyterian tymes, and when the 
bishops came in conformed with them." This warlock 
minister was Mr. Gideon Penman, minister of Crighton, 
and a man of notoriously loose life ; but whether he 
carried his defiance of good so far as to dance with the 
hags at the Sabbath, and "beat up those that were 
slow," and preach damnable doctrines and blasphemous 
travesties of the Christian faith in the devil's services, 
or whether he was only an immoral man — better out of 
the ministry than in it — remains for each reader's 
private judgment to determine. Ten of the accused 
stoutly affirmed that Mr. Gideon Penman was their 
devil's parson ; but as he as stoutly denied it, he was 
liberated on his own security, while nine out of the ten 
were condemned to be strangled and burnt, which was 
* LaVs 'Memorials.' 



140 THE WITCHES OF SCOTLAND. 

done accordingly. They gave some curious details, as, 
that, when they renounced their baptism and gave them- 
selves over to Satan by laying one hand on their head 
and the other on their feet he kissed them, and that he 
was cold to the touch, and his breath like a damp air ; 
that he scourged them oft, and was a most " wicked and 
barbarous master ;" and that when he administered the 
sacrament to them the bread was like wafers, and the 
drink like blood or black moss- water: that he trans- 
formed them to the likeness of bees, and crows, and 
ravens, when they flew about from place to place as he 
ordered. 

THE DEVIL EST HIS CUPS.* 

On December 19, 1679, the parish of Borrowstonness 
was again in an uproar concerning the evil doings of 
witches and wizards, the chief of whom was Annaple 
Thomson, once a widow, but now a wife. She was 
charged with having one day met the devil on her way 
between Linlithgow and Borrowstonness, when he "in 
the lyknes of ane black man told yow that yow wis ane 
poore puddled bodie, and had ane evill lyiff, and diffi- 
cnltie to win throw the warld ; and promised that iff ye 
wald folio we him, and go alongst with him, yow should 
never want, but have ane better lyiff ; and abowt fyve 
wekes therafter, the D evill appeired to yow, when yow 
wis goeing to the coal-hill, about sevin o'clock in the 
morning. Having renewed his former tentatiowne yow 
did condescend thereto, and declared yowrselff con- 
tent to follow him, and becwm liis servant ;" — which was 
bad of Annaple Thomson, and sure to bring her to 
ineffectual grief. Then some others, men and women 

* Scots' Magazine. 



THE DEVIL IN HIS CUPS. 141 

both, were further informed of their misdeeds. They 
were told that "ye, and each person of yow, wis at 
several mettings with the Devill in the linkes of Bor- 
rowstownes, and in the howse of yow, Bessie Vickar, 
and ye did eatt and drinke with the Devill, and with on 
another, and with witches in hir howss in the nycht 
tyme ; and the Devill and the said William Craw 
browght the ale which ye drank, extending to about 
sevin gallons, from the howss of Elisabeth Hamilton." 
So did the rest. Margaret Pringle, whose right wrist 
the devil had grievously pained, "but having it twitched 
of new againe, it immediatelie becam haill;" Margaret 
Hamilton, with whom the devil had at sundry times 
" drank several choppens of ale with yow," when they 
met at the town-well at Borrowstonness and talked 
together Kke two old gossips ; also, another Margaret 
Hamilton, relict of James Pull wart, with whom the 
devil conversed in the likeness of a black man, but 
afterwards removed from her as a dog — they all com- 
mitted abominable sins with the devil, and entertained 
him familiarly like any other cummer. And were they 
not all at the meeting with the "Devill and other 
witches at the croce of Murestaine," above Ejnneil, 
upon "the threttin of October last, where jow all 
danced, and the Devill acted the pyiper, and where 
yow endevored to have destroyed Andrew Mitchell, 
sone to John Mitchell, elder in Dean of Kinneil ?" 
The case was considered clear enough for all rational 
men in Borrowstonness ; so Annabel Thomson, Mar- 
garet Pringle, the two Margaret Hamiltons, William 
Craw, and Bessie Vickar, were " found guiltie be ane 
assyse of the abominable cryme of Witchcraft," and 
were ordered to be taken to the west end of Borrow- 
stonness, " the ordinar place of execution," betwixt two 



142 THE WITCHES OF SCOTLAND. 

and four in the afternoon, and " there be wirried at a 
steack till they be dead, and thereafter to have their 
bodies burnt to ashes." 



THE GHOST OF THE BLACK-BROWED MAID.* 

If bodies were safe after death, characters were not. 
Isabel Heriot was maid of all work to the minister at 
Preston. " She was of a low Stature, small and slender 
of Body, of a Black Complexion. Her Head stood some- 
what awry upon her Neck. She was of a droll and 
jeering Humour, and would have spoken to Persons of 
Honour with great Confidence." After some short time 
of service, her master the minister began to dishke her, 
because she was not eager in her religious duties ; so 
he discharged her : and in 1680 she died — and " about 
the time of her death her face became extreamly 
black." Two or three nights after her burial, one 
Isabel Mm-ray saw her, in her white gi-ave-clothes, 
walk from the chapel to the minister's louping-on stone 
(horse-block). Here she halted, leaning her elbow on 
the stone, then went in at the back gate, and so towards 
the stable. A few nights after this stones were flung at 
the minister's house, over the roof, and in at the doors 
and windows; but they fell softly for the most part, 
and did no especial damage. Yet one night, just as the 
minister was coming in at the hall door, a great stone 
was flung after him, which hit the door very smartly 
and marked it. Isabel Murray was also hit with stones, 
and the serving-man who looked to the horses was 
, gripped at the heel by something which made him cry 
out lustily. So it went on. Stones and clods, and lighted 



* Sinclair's ' Invisible World.' 



THE GHOST OF THE BLACK-BKOWED MAID. 143 

coals, and even an old horse-comb long since lost, were 
perpetually flying about, and only by severe prayer was 
the minister able to lay the devil who molested them. 

Soon Isabel Mm-ray reappeared with a fresh set of 
circumstances concerning the ghost of her namesake 
Isabel Heriot, the maid of all work. She said that as 
she was coming from church between sermons, to visit 
her house and kailyard for fear some vagrant cows 
might have got over the dyke — which were very likely 
of the true Maclarty type — on going down her own 
yard, which was next to the minister's, she saw again 
the apparition of Isabel Heriot, as she was when laid in 
her coffin. " Never was an egg liker to another than 
this Apparition was Kke to her, as to her Face, her 
Stature, her Motion, her Tongue, and Behaviour ; her 
face was black like the mouten soot, the very colour 
which her face had when she died." The ghost was 
walking under the fruit-trees, and over the beds where 
the seeds had been sown, bending her body downwards, 
as if she had been seeking somewhat off the ground, 
and saying, " A stane ! a stane !" Her lap was full of 
stones ; as some people supposed the stones she cast in 
the night-time ; and these stones she threw down, as if 
to harbour them, at a bush-root in the garden. Isobel 
Murray, nothing daunted, goes up to her. 

" Wow !" says she, '' what's thou doing here, Isabel 
Heriot? I charge thee by the law thou lives on to tell me." 

Says the ghost, " I am come again because I wronged 
my master when I was his servant. For it was I 
that stealed his Shekel (this was a Jewish shekel 
of gold which, with some other things, had been stolen 
from him several years before), which I hid under the 
Hearthstone in the Kitching, and then when I flited 
took it into the Cannongate, and did offer to seU it to a 



144 THE WITCHES OF SCOTLAND. 

French Woman who lodged where I served, who askt 
where I got it. I told her I found it between Leith 
and Edinburgh." Then she went on to make further 
confession. Having fyled herself for a thief she went 
on to show how she had been also a witch. " One 
night," says the ghost, " I was riding home late from 
the Town, and near the Head of Fanside Brae, the 
Horse stumbled, and I said, The Devil raise thee ; 
whereupon the Foul Thief appeared presently to me, 
and threatened me, if I would not grant to destroy my 
Master the Minister, he would throw me into a deep 
hole (wliich I suppose is yet remaining) ; or if I could 
not get power over my master, I should strive to destroy 
the Shoolmaster." 

" It was very remarkable," says George Sinclau-, as a 
kind of commentary, " that one of the minister's servant- 
women had given to the schoolmaster's servant-woman 
some Linnings to make clean, among which there was a 
Cross cloth of strong Linning, which could never be 
found, though diligent search was made for it, till one 
morning the Master awakening found it bound round 
about his Night Gap, which bred admiration both to 
himself and his Wife. No more skaith was the Devil 
or the Witches able to do him. What way this was 
done, or for what end it cannot be well known : but it 
is somewhat probable that they designed to strangle 
and destroy him in the night time, which is their usual 
time in working and doing of mischief. This happened 
about the time (I suppose) that the Devil had charged 
Isabel Heriot to destroy this honest man. Yet within 
two days a young cliild of his, of a year old, fell sick, 
which was quickly pulled away by death, none knowing 
the cause or nature of the disease." 

Isabel Murray went on to say, that furthermore the 



THE SUCOUBUS. 145 

fihost confessed to lier, that she, Isabel Heriot, when in 
life, had met the devil a second time at Elfiston Mill, 
near to Ormiston : and she told what foulness the devil 
did to lier. Also, one night as she was coming home 
from Haddington Market with some horse-corn, she met 
tlie devil at Knock-hills, and he bade her destroy Thomas 
Anderson, who Avas riding with her. When she refused 
he threw all the horse-corn off the horse. " This Thomas 
Anderson was a Christian man," and when Murray told 
her tale " well remembered that Isabel had got up the 
next morning timeously," and brought home her oats 
which had lain in the road all the night. She said too 
that slie had cheated her master whenever she went to 
the market to buy oats, charging him more than they 
cost — not an unusual practice with servants at market 
anywhere ; and she told Isabel Murray that the stone 
cast at her was not for herself but for her goodman, 
who had once flung her, the ghost, into the jawhole, 
and abused her. At this point Mm-ray said she began 
to be frightened, and ran home in all haste. So Isabel 
Heriot's character was settled for ever, and her neigh- 
bours only thought the judgment came too late. 

THE SUCCUBUS.* 

William Barton, a loose-lived man of notoriously 
strong passions, was apprehended for witchcraft. His 
confession included the not very frequent Scottish 
element of a Succubus — a demon under the form 
of a beautiful woman who beguiled him, and to whom 
he made himself over for love and gold. She bap- 
tized him under the name of John Baptist, gave him 
her mark, and fifteen pounds Scots in good gold as 

* Sinclair. 



146 THE WITCHES OF SCOTLAND. 

Tocher-money ; and then they parted. When he had 
gone but a little way she called him back and gave 
him a mark to spend at the Ferry, desiring him to 
keep the fifteen pounds safe and unbroken. At this 
point in his confession the poor wretch was weary, 
and asked leave to go to sleep ; which, for a wonderful 
stretch of humanity, the judges granted. Suddenly he 
awakened with a loud laugh. The magistrates asked 
why he laughed ? — and he said that during his sleep the 
devil had come to him, very angry at his confession, and 
bidding him deny all when he awoke, " for he should 
be his Warrand." After this he became "obdured," 
and would never confess anything again; the devil 
persuading him that no man should take his life. And 
even when they told him that the stake was set up and 
the fire built round, he only answered, "he cared not 
for all that, for," said he, "I shal not die this day." 
How should he if no man was to kill him? Upon 
this the executioner came into the prison, but fell 
stone dead as he crossed the threshold. Hastily the 
magistrates offered a reward to the executioner's wife if 
she would undertake her husband's office, and strangle 
the poor mad fellow before he was burnt ; which she 
agreed to do, for all that she was in great pain and 
grief, clapping her hands and crying, " Dool for this 
parting my dear burd Andrew Martin !" When the 
warlock heard that a woman was to put him to death, 
he fell into a passion of crying, saying that the devil 
had deceived him, and "let no man ever trust his 
promises again !" 

Barton's wife was imprisoned with him. On her 
side she declared that she had never known her hus- 
band to be a warlock; he on his that he had never 
known her to be a witch : but presently the mask fell 



THE ISLAND WITCHES. 147 

off, and slie confessed. She said that malice against 
one of her neighbours had driven her to give herself 
over to the devil, that he had baptized her by the name 
of Margaratus, and taken her to be very near to him ; 
a great deal too near for even a virtuous woman's 
thoughts. When asked if she had found pleasure in 
his society, she answered, " Never much." But one 
night, going to a witches' dance upon Pentland Hills, he 
went before them all in the likeness of a rough tanny 
dog, playing on a pair of pipes. The spring he played, 
said she,, was " The silly bit chicken, gar cast it a pickle, 
and it will grow mickle;" and coming down the hill 
they had the best sport of all: the devil carried the 
candle and his tail went, " ey wig wag, wig wag !'* 
Maro^aratus was burnt with her husband. 



THE ISLAND WITCHES. 

The Orkney and Shetland islanders were rich in 
witchcraft superstitions. They had all the Norwegian 
behefs in fullest, ripest quality, and held to every- 
thing that had been handed down to them from 
Harald Harfagre and his followers. Kelpies and trows, 
and brownies and trolls, which somehow or other 
went out with taxation and agriculture, peopled every 
stream and every meadow, and witches were as many 
as there were men who loved nature, or women who had 
a faculty for healing and the instinct of making pets. 
Somewhere about the middle of the seventeenth 
century a woman was adjudged a witch because she 
was seen going from Hilswick to Brecon with a couple 
of familiars in the form of black crows or corbies, 
which hopped on each side of her, all the way. Which 



14S THE WITCHES OF SCOTLAND. 

thing, not being in the honest nature of these fowls to 
do, she was strangled and burnt. But most frequently 
the imp took the form of a cat or dog ; sometimes of a 
respectable human being ; as was the case about seventy 
years ago, when it was notorious that the devil, as a 
good braw countryman, helped a warlock's wife to 
delve while her husband was engaged at the Haaf. 
According to the same authority too,* not longer ago 
than this time, w^hen the devil dug like any navvy, a 
woman of the parish of Dunrossness was known to have 
a deadly enmity against a boat's crew that had set oft" 
from the Haaf. The day was cloudless, but the woman 
was a witch, and storms were as easy for her to raise as 
to blow a kiss from the hand. She took a wooden 
basin, called a cap, and set it afloat in a tub of water ; 
then, as if to disarm suspicion, went about her house- 
hold work, chanting softly to herself an old Norse ditty. 
After she had sung a verse or two she sent her little 
child to look at the tub, and see whether the cap was 
ivliummilled (turned upside down) or no. The child 
said the water was stirring but the bowl was afloat. 
The woman went on singing a little louder ; and pre- 
sently sent the child again to see ho^v matters stood. 
This time the child said there was a strange swell in 
the water, but the cap still floated. The woman then 
sang more loud and fierce ; and again she sent. The 
child came back saying the waters were strangely 
troubled, and the cap was whummilled. Then she 
cried out, " The turn is done!" and left off singing. 
On the same day came word that a fishing yawl had 
been lost in the Koust, and all on board drowned. The 
same story is told of some women in the island of 
Fetlar, who, when a boat's crew had perished in tlie 

* Hibbert's ' Shetland Islands.' 



THE ISLxVND WITCHES. 149 

Bav of Funzie, were found sitting round a well, mutter- 
ing mysterious words over a wooden bowl supernaturally 
agitated. The whole thing, as Hibbert says, forcibly 
reminds one of the old Norse superstition of the Quern 
Song. 

It was no unusual thing for men and women of 
otherwise peaceable and cleanly life to tamper with the 
elements in those dim and distant days. Even seventy 
years ago a man named John Sutherland of Papa Stour 
was in the habit of getting a fair wind for weather-bound 
vessels: and the Knoll of Kibister, in the island of 
Bressay, now called Luggie's Knowe,* testifies by its 
name to the skill and sorrowful fate of a well-known 
wizard of the seventeenth century. There on that 
steep hill used Luggie to live, and in the stormiest 
weather managed somehow always to have his bit of 
fresh fish :. angling with the most perfect success, even 
when the boats could not come into the bay. When 
out at sea Luggie had nothing to do but cast out his 
lines to have as plentiful a dinner as he could desire. 
" He would out of Neptune's lowest kitchen, bring cle- 
verly up fish well-boiled and roasted ;" but strange 
and mischancy as the art was, his companions got 
accustomed to it, " and would by a natural courage 
make a merry meal thereof, not doubting who was 
cook." But Luggie's cleverness proved fatal to him. 
'Men were not even adept fishers in those days without 
danger, and jealousy and fear helped to swell the 
reputation of his natm^al skill into supernatural power ; 
so he was tried for a sorcerer, and burnt at a stake at 
Scalloway. We need hardly wonder at the fate of 
poor Luggie, considering the times. If it were possible 
to hang tAVO women on the 26th of January, 1681 — 

* Hibbert and Sinclair. 



150 THE WITCHES OF SCOTLAND. 

actually to hang tliem in the sight of God and this 
loving pitiful human world, " for calling kings and 
bishops perjured bloody men,"* we need not wonder to 
what lengths superstition in any of its other forms was 
carried. We have made a stride since then, with seven- 
leagued boots winged at the heels. 

A family of bright young sons t lived on one of the 
Shetland islands. A certain Norwegian lady had reason 
to think herself slighted by one of them, and she swore 
she would have her revenge. The sons were about to 
cross a voe or ferry ; but one was to take liis shelty, 
while the rest were to go by the boat. Mysteriously 
the shelty was found to have been loosed from its 
tether, and was gone ; so all the heirs male of the 
race were under the necessity of going by the boat 
across the voe. It was the close of day — -a mild windless 
evening : not a ripple was on the water, not a cloud in 
the sky ; and no one on either bank heard a cry or saw 
the waters stir. But the youths never returned home. 
When they were searched for the next day they could 
nowhere be found : only the boat drifting to the shore, 
unharmed and unsteered. When the deed was done 
the shelty was brought back to its tether as mysteriously 
as it had been taken away. 

Trials and executions still went on ; some at 
Dumfries, and some at Coldingham X where Margaret 
Polvvart was publicly rebuked for using charms and 
incantations to recover her sick child whom " that thief 
Christian Happer had wronged." But as a neighbour 
told her very wisely, " They that chant cannot charm, 
or they that lay on cannot take off the disease, or they 
that do wrong to any one, cannot recover them," so 
what was the good of all her notorious cantrips with 

* Fountainhall. f Hibbert. J Chambers. 



THE KENFREWSHIRE WITCHES. 151 

Jean Hart and Alison Nisbet— the last of such evil 
fame that she had lately been scratched for a witch — 
that is, had blood drawn above her breath ? Margaret 
Polwart might be thankful that she got off with only a 
rebuke for using charms in place of drugs, and consort- 
ing with witches to undo witches' work. In 1696, Janet 
Widdrow and Isobel Cochrane were brought to trial, 
but not burnt for the present ; but two poor creatures, 
jM'Eorie and M'Quicken, did not escape : nor some 
others, of no special dramatic interest. 

And now we come to that marvellous piece of disease 
and impostm-e combined, the notorious case of " Bar- 
garran's Daughter." 

THE RENFREWSHIRE WITCHES.* 

Christian Shaw, Bargarran's daughter, was a little 
girl of about eleven years of age, " of a lively character 
and well inclined." On the 17th of August, 1696, she 
saw the woman servant, Katherine Campbell, steal a 
drink of milk from the can, whereupon she threatened 
to tell her mother ; but Campbell, " being a young 
woman of a proud and revengeful temper, and much 
addicted to cursing and swearing upon any light occa- 
sion," turned against her vehemently, wishing " that 
the Devil might harle her soul through hell," and 
cursing her with violent imprecations. Five days after 
tliis, Agnes Naismith, an old woman of bad fame, came 
into the courtyard, and asked Christian how old she 
was, and how she did, inquiring also after the health of 
other members of the family. Christian gave her a 
pert answer, and there the matter ended ; but the next 

* Watson's Tract, printed 1698. Chambers, Dickie, and various 
other sources. 



152 THE WITCHES OF SCOTLAND. 

night the young girl was taken with fits, and the first 
act of the long and mournful tragedy began. In her 
fits she cried out against Katherine Campbell and 
xignes Naismith, saying they were cutting her side and 
otherwise tormenting her; then she struggled as with 
an unseen enemy, and her body was, now bowed stiff 
and rigid, resting in an arch on her head and her heels 
alone, and now shaken with such a strange motion of 
rising and falling, as it had been a pair of bellows ; her 
tongue was drawn into her throat, and even the great 
Dr. Brisbane of Glasgow himself was puzzled by what 
name to call her passion, for she began to vomit strange 
things^ which she said the witches, her tormentors, forced 
upon her — such as crooked pins, small fowl bones, sticks 
of candle fir, filthy hay, gravel stones, lumps of candle- 
grease, and egg-shells. And still she cried out against 
Katherine Campbell and Agnes Naismith; holding 
long conversations with the former, whom she affirmed 
to be sitting close by when she was perhaps many 
miles away, and arguing with her out of the Bible : 
exhorting her to repent of her sins with more unction 
than logical clearness of reasoning. Agnes Naismith 
she took somewhat into favour again ; for the poor old 
woman, having been brought by the parents into the 
chamber where she lay, and having prayed for her a 
little simple prayer very heartily, the afflicted damsel 
COD descended to exempt her from further persecution for 
the moment, saying that she was now her defender and 
did protect her from the fmy of the rest. For the crafty 
child had seen too well how her first venture had sped 
not to venture on a broader cast. One day being in 
her fits she made a grip with her hands as if to catch 
something, then exclaimed that J. P. was then tormenting 
her, and that she had got a grip of his jerkin which was 



( 



THE RENFREWSHIEE WITCHES. 153 

" diiddie " (tattered) at the elbows ; and immediately 
her mother and aunt heard the tearing of cloth, and 
the girl showed them in her hands two pieces of red 
cloth newly torn, where never a bit of red cloth had 
been before. Then she went off into a swoon or 
^' swerf," and lay as if dead a considerable time. These 
fits continued with more or less severity far into the 
winter of the next year, and with ever new victims 
claimed by her as her tormentors. Now it was Eliza- 
beth Anderson ; now James and Thomas Lindsay — the 
latter a young lad of eleven, " the gley 'd or squint- 
eyed elf^" as she called him ; now " the scabbed-faced 
lass," who came to the door to ask alms ; and now the 
weary old Highland body, begging for a night's lodging ; 
then Alexander Anderson, father of Elizabeth ; and 
Jean Eulton, the grandmother ; and then Margaret Lang 
— ^Pincht Margaret as she was called — " a Name given 
her by the Devil, from a Pincht Cross cloath, ordinarily 
worn on her Brow ;" and her daughter, Martha Semple. 
Of the twenty-one people accused by this wicked girl, 
Margaret Lang and her daughter were the most re- 
markable — the one for her courage, her fine character 
and powerful mind, the other for her youth, her beauty, 
and child-like innocence of nature. When she heard 
that she was accused, Margaret — who had been advised 
to get out of the way for a time, but who had answered 
disdainfully, " Let them quake that dread and fear that 
need, but I will not gang" — went up straight to Bar- 
garran house, and passing into the chamber where 
Christian lay, put her arms round her and spoke to her 
soothingly, saying, " The Lord bless thee and ding the 
devil fi-ae thee 1" She then asked her pointedly if she 
had ever seen her among her tormentors ? — to which the 
girl said. " No, but she had seen her daughter Martha." 



154 THE WITCHES OF SCOTLAND. 

Afterwards she retracted this admission and said that 
Margaret had really afflicted her, but that she was under 
a spell when asked and could not confess. Martha could 
not take things so gently. '' She was as well-Favoured 
and Gentill a Lass as you'l look on, and about 17 or 18 
years of Age," says an old authority in an anonymous 
letter written to a couple of initials. Poor Martha ! her 
youth and beauty and passionate distress moved even 
the bigoted wretches who condemned her; but their 
compassion led to nothing pitiful or merciful, and 
the poor, bright, beautiful girl passed into the awful 
doom of the rest. Then the authorities " questioned " 
the witches ; they were pricked, according to custom 
and the national law ; and " There was not any of them, 
save Margaret Fulton, but marks were found on them, 
which were altogether insensible. That a Needle of 
3 Inches length was frequently put in Avithout their 
knowledge, nor would any Blood come from these 
places." Elizabeth Anderson, a girl of seventeen, a 
beggar, James Lindsay, of fourteen, and gley'd Thomas, 
his brother, not yet twelve — who for a halfpenny 
would turn himself widershins and stop a plough at 
a word — were found willing and able to confess. 
Elizabeth Anderson was especially determined that 
things should not be lost for the want of finding. She 
said that about twenty days ago her father had told 
her to go with him to Bargarran's yard, somewhere 
about noon, where they met a black man with a bonnet 
on his head, and a band round his neck, whom her 
father and Agnes Naismith, then present, told her 
was the devil : that certain people, named, were also in 
their company ; that their discourse was all of Christian 
Shaw, then lying sick, " whose Life they all promis'd 
to take away by the stopping of her Breath ;" that they 



THE RENFREWSHIRE WITCHES. 155 

all danced in the yard ; that her father " Discharged 
her to tell anything she saw, or she would be Tom 
in Pieces : and that she was more Affraied of the 
forsaid persons than she was of the Devil." This con- 
fession was made on the 5th of February, 1697. A few 
days later her imagination was more lively. x\bout 
seven years ago, she said, as she was playing round the 
door of her grandmother, Jean Fulton's, house, she saw 
" ane black gTim man " go into the house to her 
grandmother, where he abode for a while talking. Jean 
bade her take the gentleman by the hand, and he would 
give her '' ane Bony Black, new Coat ; which accordingly 
she did." But his hand was cold and she was afeard : 
and then he vanished away. The same thing happened 
once again, when the black gentleman and her grand- 
mother fell a-talking together by " rounding in other's 
ears," but the girl understood not what they said. This 
time she would not touch his hand for all his promises 
of bran new clothes ; so " the gentleman went away in a 
flight," and she saw him no more for long after. The 
next time was when her father " desired her to go with 
him through the Country and seek their Meat ; to which 
she replyed she need not seek her Meat, seeing she might 
have Work :" but her father prevailed, and took her to 
a moor where above twenty people were assembled; 
whose names she gives in a formidable muster. Now 
the devil tempted her anew with meat and clothes, but 
she would not consent; so he and her father stepped aside 
and conferred together. Their meeting this day was 
for the destruction of a certain minister's child, which 
they were to effect by means of a wax picture and pins. 
Another time it was for the destruction of another 
ministers child by the same means, and she heard 
Margaret Eodger say, '' Stay a little, till I stop ane 



156 THE WITCHES OF SCOTLAND. 

Pin iu the Heart of it :" which accordingly she did. 
This time her father took her on his back over the 
water to Kilpatrick in a Flight, saying Mount and Fly. 
She was with the witch crew when they drowned Brig- 
house by upsetting liis boat, and when they strangled a 
child with a sea napkin : after which they all danced with 
the devil *•' in ane black Coat, ane Blew Bonnet, ane 
Blev/ Band," who played the pipes for them, and gave 
them each a piece of an unchristened bairn's liver to 
eat, so that they should never confess if apprehended. 
With other abominations too foul to be repeated. 

The same day, February 18th, James Lindsay, the 
elder of the two brothers, confessed. Jean Fulton was 
his grandmother too, and he said that one day, when 
she met him, she took his little round hat and plack 
from him. Being loath to part with the same, he ran 
after her crying for them : which she refusing, he called 
her an old witch, and ran away. Whereupon she 
threatened him. Eight days after this, as he was 
begging through the country near Inchannan where 
she lived, he met her again ; and this time she had with 
her " ane black grim man with black cloaths, ane 
black Hat and blcAv Band," who offered his hand, wliich 
James took and which he found cold as it gript him 
straitly. The gentleman asked if he would serve him 
for a Bonny black coat and a black hat, and several 
other things, to which he replied " Yes, I'll do't." He 
then went to all the meetings, and saw all the people 
and did all the things that Elizabeth had spoken of; 
even to strangling Montgomerie's bau-n Avith a sea 
napkin at twelve o'clock at night, while the servant 
girl was watching by the cradle. Young Thomas the 
giey'd followed next, confessing to just the same things, 
even to the liver of the " uncrissened bairn," wliich all 



THE RENFREWSHIKE WITCHES. 157 

eat save Elizabeth and their two selves : a slip-by 
that accounted for their confessions. And now justice 
had a good handful to begin with, so the work of accu- 
sation went briskly forward. Bargarran's daughter 
still continued bringing out crooked pins and stones 
and all sorts of unmentionable lilth from her mouth, 
and still Avent on quarrelling with the devil wdiom she 
called an old sow, and holding conversations with the 
apparitions of her tormentors, still mixed up fraud 
with epilepsy, and lies and craft and wicked guile with 
hysteria, till the witch-fires were fairly lighted, and 
seven of the poor wretches " done to death." Among 
whom brave Margaret and her beautiful child held the 
most prominent place. Never for a moment did Mar- 
garet Lang lose her courage or self-possession. Seeing 
a farmer whom she knew, among the crowd assembled 
round the gallows, she called out to him bitterly, " that 
he would now thrive like a green bay-tree, for there 
would be no innocent blood shed that day ;" but what 
she meant for u'ony the people took for confession. 
AVhen she was burned, the answer of a spectator to one 
who asked if the execution was over, showed what 
feeling they had about her : ^' There's ane o' the 
witches in hell, an' the rest 'ill shune follow ! " said he 
contentedly. Another man, w^hose stick was taken to 
push back the legs of the poor wretches as they were 
thrust out of the flames, when it was returned to him, 
flung it into the flames, saying, " I'll tak nae stick 
hame wi' me to my hous that has touched a witch." 
\Mien all was over and the sacrifice was complete, 
Bargarran's daughter declared herself satisfied and 
cured ; no more " bumbees " came to pinch her — no 
more charms of balls of hair or waxen eggs were laid 
beneath her bed — no more apparitions thronged to vex 



158 THE WITCHES OF SCOTLAND. 

her, nor had she fits or tossings, foamings or strange 
swellings as of old; the devil left off tempting her 
with promises of a fine gentleman for a husband ; the 
witches no longer allured her by ^antom aprons filled 
with phantom almonds ; the Lord "helped the •poor daft 
child," as Mrs. M. had prayed, though she was scarce 
worth the helping, and the world was oppressed with 
her lies no more. But the blood of the murdered 
innocent lay red on the ground, and cried aloud to 
heaven for vengeance against the murderers. The 
case of Bargarran's daughter has been always accepted 
as one of the most puzzling on record ; but when may 
not mankind be puzzled if they have but sufficient cre- 
dulity? Subtract from this account the possible and 
the certain — the possible frauds and the certain lies — 
and what is left? A diseased gu*l, hysterical and epi- 
leptic, full of hallucinations and pretended fancies, with 
a certain quickness of hand which the tremendous 
gullibility of her auditory rendered yet more facile — 
unscrupulous, mendacious ; the only thing surprising 
in the whole matter was that there was not one man 
of sufficient coolness of judgment, or quickness of per- 
ception, to see through the imposture and set his grip 
on it ere it passed. Dickie and Mitchell, who a few 
years back visited the house where all this took place, 
found a slit or hole in the wooden partition between 
her bedroom and the room next it ; a slit, evidently 
made purposely, and not a natural defect in the wood, 
and so placed that when the bed was made up (the bed 
of richly-carved oak yet stands or stood there) it could 
not be seen by any one in the room. This little 
fact seems to speak volumes, and to help materially 
towards establishing the questions of fraud and con- 
nivance. The remote sequel is the only consoling fea- 



MISCELLANEOUS. 159 

tiire in the case. From being the most notorious 
impostor and the most cruel, false, and deadly per- 
secutor of her time, Bargarran's daughter, as Mrs. 
Miller, became one of the best and most famous spin- 
ners of fine and delicate thread. She caused certain 
machinery to be brought from Holland, and wrought at 
her spinning wheel with all the intelligence and zeal 
that, earlier, had been so miserably employed to the 
ruin and destruction of her fellow-creatm-es. It is to be 
hoped that the coolness and reflection of maturity gave 
her grace to repent of the sins of her girlhood, and 
that after-penitence wiped out the terrible stains of 
youthful lying and murder. 



MISCELLANEOUS. 

That same year also Sir John Maxwell, of Pollok, 
and some other gentlemen, were commissioned to try 
two poor women, Mary Millar and Elspeth M'Ewen, 
and if guilty adjudge them to death ; which they were 
found to be, and adjudged accordingly ; and a few 
months after, Margaret Lau'd — still in Eenfrewshire — 
was reputed to have been " under ane extraordinary 
and most lamentable trouble, falling into strange and 
horrible fits, judged by aU who have seen her to be 
preternatural, arising from the devil and his instru- 
ments." The suspected witches who were accused of 
troubUng her, were seized and put upon their trial. 
So was Mary Morrison, spouse of Francis Duncan ; but 
her husband petitioned so earnestly for her release for 
sake of her " numerous poor family " starving in 
neglect at home, and there being no kind of proof 
against her, she was at length released and set at 



160 THE WITCHES OF SCOTLAND. 

liberty. *' The Lord-Advocate soon after reported to 
tlie Privy Council a letter he had received from the 
Sheriff of Kenfrewshii-e, stating that ' the persons im- 
prisoned in that county as witches are in a starving 
condition, and that those who informed against tliem 
are passing from them, and the sheriff says he will send 
them in prisoners to Edinburgh Tolbooth, unless they 
be quickly tried.' His lordship was recommended to 
ask the sheriff to support the prisoners till November 
next, when they would probably be tried, and the 
charges would be disbursed by the treasury. A distinct 
allowance of a groat a day was ordered on the 12th of 
January, 1699, for each of the RenfrewsMre witches."* 
In July of the same year, Eoss-shire contributed a 
famous quota. Twelve luckless creatures were reported 
at once as being guilty of the " diabolical crimes and 
charms of witchcraft,'" and by the 2nd of January, 1700, 
two of them had confessed, and were sentenced to such 
arbitrary punishment as the committee might think 
proper. " This is the first appearance of an inclination 
in the central authorities to take mild views of witch- 
craft," says Chambers ; but we have not seen the last 
of capital punishments, for on the 20th of November, 
1702, Margaret Myles was hanged at Edinburgh. That 
she was a witch was proved not only by her o^vn con- 
fession, but by her inability to say the Lord's Prayer, 
even when the minister, Mr. George Andrews, tried to 
teach her. Allien he desu-ed her to pray " her heart 
was so obdured that she answered she could not ; for, 
as she confessed, she was in covenant with the de^dl, 
who had made her renounce her baptism." He then 
wished her to say the Lord's Prayer after him, and she 
began, but she would say nothing but " Our Father 
* Chambers. 



THE STIRK'S FOOT. ICfl 

which wart in heaven/' and could not- by any means be 
got to say the right word. He then reproached her, 
saying, '* How could she bid him pray for her, since she 
could not pray for herself?" and, singing two verses of 
the 51st Psalm, he made her show a little penitence. 
Then he essayed her again, trying to make her repeat 
after him, " I renounce the devil," but she would only 
say, " I unce the devil ;" " for by no means would she 
say distinctly that she renounced the devil, and adhered 
unto her baptism, but that she unced the devil, and 
hered unto her baptism. The only sign of repentance 
she gave was after the napkin had covered her face, for 
then she said, * Lord, take me out of the devil's hands, 
and put me in God's.' " 

The next year, " The Kigwoodie Witch," lean 
Marion LilKe of Spott, was had before the Kirk 
Session to account for her dealings in the village. She 
was a passionate-tongued old dame, who had handled 
roughly one of her neighbours while in the condition 
that looked forward to Mrs. Gamp and the caudle-cup ; 
so roughly, indeed, that Mrs. Gamp and the caudle-cup 
were forestalled, and the poor woman was brought to 
an unpleasant pass ; so the Kigwoodie witch got some- 
thing not so pleasant as a month's nursing, and was put 
out of the way of handling pregnant women roughly for 
the future. 



THE STIEK'S FOOT.* 

Jean Neilson lived in Torryburn, a village in the 
west of Fife, and she and Lillias Adie, a woman of more 
than equivocal reputation, were not on the best of 

* Cliambers. 

M 



162 THE WITCHES OF SCOTLAND. 

terms. Jean Neilson was but a poor sickly body, full 
of fancies and uncatalogued ailments ; and because she 
had no scientific name to give them, she gave Lillias 
the credit of having created them by her magic. She 
swore that she was bewitched, and that old Lillias was 
the bewitcher. Upon which the ministers and elders of 
the kirk in Torryburn met in solemn conclave on the 
29th of July, and called Lillias before them to give an 
account of her bad practices. Lillias had no mind that 
they should lose their trouble. She confessed herself a 
witch without further ado ; said how that she had met 
the devil by the side of a " stook " in the harvest field, 
where she had renounced her baptism and accepted 
him on the instant as her lord and lover ; how he had 
embraced her, when she found his skin cold, and saw 
his feet cloven like a " stirk's." Since then she had 
joined in dances with him and others whom she 
named ; for Lillias, like all the rest, seemed to think 
there was safety in a multitude, and delated several 
of the parish, to bear her company in her uncom- 
fortable position ; and she told how, at the back of 
Patrick Sands' house in Yellyfield, they were lighted 
by a mysterious light, just sufficient to let them see 
each other's faces, and to show the devil with a cap 
covering his ears and neck. The minister and elders 
had now rich game in view, and they held meeting 
after meeting to examine those whom Lillias accused, 
and feed their ears with all the wild and monstrous tales 
they chose to pour into them. But what became of them 
eventually no one now knows : only of a surety Lillias 
Adie was burned " within the sea mark," and Je^n Neil- 
son might now bear her uncatalogued ailments in peace. 
The minister of Torryburn at that time was one Allen 
Logan — the Keverend Allen Logan — notorious for his 



THE HORRIBLE MURDER OF JANET CORNFOOT. 163 

skill in detectiDg witches, and liis zeal in liunting tliem 
down. When administering the communion he would 
flash his eye through the congregation and say harshly, 
as by knowledge, " You witch-wife, get up from the 
table of the Lord," casting a ball for the conscience- 
stricken to kick at ; when, ten to one, some poor old 
trembling ^Tetch would totter up, and so go mumbling 
through the doors, " thus exposing herself to the hazard 
of a regular accusation afterwards." He was always 
" dinging " against withcraft ; and one day a woman 
called Helen Kay took up her stool and went out of 
the church. She said she thought he was " daft " " to 
be always dinging against witches thae' gait ;" but the 
elders thought differently, and Helen Kay was con- 
Ticted of profanity, and ordained to sit before the con- 
gi'egation and be openly rebuked. 



THE HORRIBLE MURDER OF JANET CORNFOOT.* 

T\Tiile Liliias Adie was being burned in the west of 
Fife, Beatrix Laing, at Pittenw^eem in the east, was put 
to sore trouble. Patrick Morton, a youth of sixteen 
" free from any known vice," sent up a petition to the 
Privy Council (June 13, 1704), stating, that being em- 
ployed by his father to make some naiLs for a ship lying 
off Pittenweem, Beatrix Laing, spouse to WilKam 
Brown, tailor, and late treasurer of the burgh, came and 
demanded some nails. He " modestly " refused her, 
saying that he was engaged in another job, and could 
not therefore work for lier ; whereupon she went away, 
" threatening to be revenged, which did somewhat 
frighten him, because he knew she was under a bad 

* Cliambers ; Sinclair ; and an anonymous tract. 



164 THE WITCHES OF SCOTLAND. 

fame and reputed for a witch." The next day, on 
passing Beatrix's door, " he observed a timber vessel 
with some water and fire coal in it at the door, which 
made him apprehend that it was a charm laid for him, 
and the effect of her threatening ; and immediately he, 
was seized with such a weakness in his limbs that he 
could hardly stand or walk." For many weeks this 
strange kind of lingering disease and discomfort went 
on, he " still growing worse, having no appetite, and 
his body strangely emaciated," all because of Beatrix 
having " slockened " fire coals in a vessel as a malevo- 
lent charm for him ; till about May the disease ripened, 
and the symptoms of hysteria and epilepsy presented 
themselves. He swelled prodigiously ; his breathing, 
was like the blowing of a pair of bellows ; his body was 
rigid and inflexible ; his tongue was drawn into his 
mouth ; and he cried out vehemently against Beatrix 
Laing and others — for these accusations never came 
alone ; professing to know his tormentors by their touch 
if brought to him, although his eyes were blinded, and 
the bystanders held their peace. In short, he played 
the same antics here in the east as Bargarran's daugh- 
ter had played in the west. Beatrix and the rest were 
flung into prison, and every effort was made to induce 
them to confess. Beatrix was pricked, and kept with- 
out sleep for five days and nights ; but she held out 
manfully. She would not consent to accept the modest 
youth^s interpretation of his illness, and denied strongly 
all hand in it, and all trafficking with witch charms or 
unholy arts. At last she was conquered. Sleepless- 
ness and torture did their appointed work, and she 
made a rambling statement of baptismal renunciation, 
and the like, delating Janet Comfort and others, which 
confession she recanted as soon as she had got a little 



THE HOKEIBLE MUEDER OF JANET CORNFOOT. 165 

strength ; and specially that part where she had spoken 
of her fine packs of wool which she had sold so well 
at the market, coming home afterwards on a big black 
horse, which she gave into her husband's hands. Her 
husband, she had said, was embarrassed with this big 
black horse, and asked what he should do with it ? to 
which she had answered, " Cast his bridle on his neck 
and you will be quit of him." So the horse flew off 
overhead with a great noise, and Beatrix Laing's 
startled husband for the first time understood its real 
character. 

In revenge at her obduracy the mao:istrates " put 
her in the stocks, and then carried her to the Thieves' 
Hole, and from that transported her to a dark dungeon, 
where she was allowed no manner of light, or human 
converse ; and in this condition she lay for five 
months." All this while the magistrates of the burgh 
were pressing on the Privy Council the absolute need of 
trying her ; but the Earl of Balcarres and Lord Anstru- 
ther, two members of the council connected with the 
district, interposed their influence, and got the poor 
creature set at liberty ; — " brought her off as a 
dreamer," says the anonymous pamphlet angrily. But 
she was forced to turn her face from Pittenweem, and 
" wandered about in strange places, in the extremity 
of hunger and cold, though she had a competency at 
home, but dared not come near her own house," for fear 
of the fury and rage of the people : dying at last 
" undesired " in her bed at St. Andrews. 

Beatrix was wandering about in strange places, safe 
if sorrowful, but Alexander Macgregor chnched her 
muttered charge against Janet Cornfoot by accusing 
her of perpetually haunting him — she and two other 
witches, and his Cloutieship along with them. They 



166 THE WITCHES OF SCOTLAND. 

tormented him chiefly in the night time, while he 
was sleeping in his bed. Janet, under torture con- 
fessed ; but retracted immediately, after, saying that the 
minister himself had beaten her with his staff to make 
her speak out : and there being considerable doubt of 
her g-uilt in the minds of the gentry of the district, 
even of the chastising minister himself, she was allowed 
to escape, by connivance. But another minister of the 
neighbourhood, with more zeal than humanity and 
more grace than knowledge, stopped her in her flight, 
and sent her back to Pittenweem. There the mob got 
hold of her. They had been fearfully excited by Beatrix 
Laing's acquittal and Janet's escape, and they were not 
disposed to let this unexpected glut to their vengeance 
go. They seized poor Janet Cornfoot, tied her up hard 
in a rope, beat her unmercifully, then dragged her by 
the heels through the streets and along the shore. 
" The appearance of a bailie for a brief space dispersed 
the crowd, but only to show how easily the authorities 
might have protected their victim if they had chosen." 
Eesuming their horrible work, the rabble tied Janet to 
a rope stretching between a vessel in the harbour and 
the shore, swinging her to and fro, and amusing them- 
selves by pelting her with stones. Tiring at length of 
this sport, they let her down with a sharp fall upon the 
beach, beat her again unmercifully, and finally covering 
her with a door, pressed her to death (Jan. 30, 1705). 
Janet's daughter was in the town, and knew what 
was taking place down by that blood-stained shore, but 
she dared not interfere ; and during all the time this 
hideous murder was going on — lasting for nearly three 
hours — neither magistrate nor minister came forward 
to protect or interpose. Are verily and in truth " the 
powers that be ordained of God," or has not the devil 



THE SPELL OF THE SLAP. 167 

sometimes something to do vdth. tke laying on of 
hands? — so much of the devil, at least, as is represented 
by ignorance, inhumanity, superstition, and cowardice, 
always conspicuous qualities of the more zealous of 
every denomination. 

About this time,* Thomas Brown, another of the ac- 
cused, died of " hunger and hardship " in prison ; and 
at the close of the year, two Inverness men, George 
and Lachlan Eattray, were executed, being found 
" guilty of the horrid crimes of mischievous charms, 
by witchcraft and malefice, sorcery or necromancy." 
And many witches were also bm^nt on the top of 
Spott Loan. 

THE SPELL OF THE SLAP.f 

In 1708, William Stensgar, of Southside, in Orkney, 
had rheumatism. He sent to an old beggar-woman, 
called Catherine Taylor — a cripple herself, but none the 
less qualified to heal others by her magic arts. She 
came to him about an hour before sunrise and took the 
case in hand, bidding him follow her till they came to 
a certain kind of gate or stile, called a slap or grind ; 
William's wife accompanying them with a stoup of 
water. At this slap Catherine touched his knee, saying, 
** As I was going by the way I met the Lord Jesus 
Christ in the likeness of another man ; he asked me 
what tidings I had to tell ? I said I had no tidings to 
tell, but I am full of pain, and can neither gang nor 
stand. Thou shalt go to the holy kii'k, and thou shalt 
gang round about, and then sit down upon thy knees, 
and say thy prayers to the Lord, and then thou shalt 
be as heal as the hour when Christ was born." After 

* Chambers. t Hibbert. 



168 THE WITCHES OF SCOTLAND. 

this }):ccious charm, which the old cripple said had 
been taught her when a child, she repeated the 23rd 
Psalm ; and then the evil spirit which had caused the 
rheumatism was assumed to be " tolled out " into the 
stoup of water ; at all events William Stensgar would 
have no more of it. Then the water was emptied out 
over the slap or gate so that the next person passing by 
the stile might get it instead of William. One man 
who had watched this devilry from the beginning, evaded 
the foul fiend by pushing his ,way through the hedge 
higher up ; but another unfortunate wretch, not so lucky 
or not so early a riser, coming blundering over the stile 
as usual, got laid hold of by the fiend which William 
Stensgar had shaken off, and was holden by it hardly. 



THE PLAGUE OF CATS.* 

Year by year witches became scarcer, none of any 
special note presenting themselves till we come to the 
case of Margaret Mn-Grilbert, of Caithness, which hap- 
pened in the year 1718 ; the same year as that in 
which the minister of Eedcastle lost his life by witch- 
craft, and Mr. M'Gill's house at Kinross (he was minister 
there) was so egregiously troubled by a spirit which 
nipped the sheets and stuck pins into eggs and meat, 
and dipt away the laps of a gentlewoman's hood and 
a servant maid's gown tail, and flung stones down the 
chimney, which " wambled a space " on the floor, and 
then took a flight out of the window, and threw the 
minister's bible into the fire, and spoilt the baking, 
and played all sorts of mad pranks to disquiet the family 
and defy God. If such things as these could be done 

* Law's ' Memorials ;' and Chambers. 



t 



THE PLAGUE OF CATS. 169^ 

iu the light of the sun, why, should not Margaret Nin- 
Gilbert have supernatural power ? Nin-Gilbert had a 
friend, one Margaret Olson, a woman of it is said 
wicked behaviour, whom Mr. Frazer put out of her house, 
taking as his tenant instead one William Montgomerie. 
Upon this Margaret Olson went to her friend Nin-Gil- 
bert, the notorious witch, and besought her to harm 
Mr. Frazer ; but Mr. Frazer being a gentleman of rank 
and fortune was defended from the witches, and Nin- 
Gilbert confessed she had no power or inclination to hurt 
him. However, one night as he was crossing a bridge, 
they attempted him, but succeeded not; and he, on 
being questioned, said he perfectly remembered " his 
horse making a great adoe at that place, but that by 
the Lord's goodness he escaped." Also he had a great 
sickness at the time these women were taken, but he 
had common sense enough to refuse to ascribe it to 
them. Finding that they could not prevail against 
J\Ir. Frazer, they turned their attention to Mont- 
gomerie, " mason, in Burnside of Scrabster," who was 
also under the ban for having accepted the tenancy 
of which Margaret Olson had been dispossessed. 
Suddenly his house 'became so infested with cats 
that it was no longer safe for his family to remain 
there. He himself was away, but his wife sent to 
him five times, threatening that if he did not return 
home to protect them, she would flit to Thurso; 
and his servant left them suddenly, and in mid term, 
because five of these cats came one night to the fireside 
where she was alone, and began speaking among them- 
selves with human and intelligible voices. So William 
Montgomerie, mason at Scrabster, returned home to do 
battle with the enemy. The cats came in their old way 
and in their old numbers ; and William prepared his 



170 THE WITCHES OF SCOTLAND. 

best. On Friday night, the 28th of November, one 
of the cats got into a chest with a hole in it, and when 
she put her head out of the hole, William made a lunge 
at her with his sword, which " cutt hir," but for all that 
he could not hold her. He then opened the chest, and 
his servant, William Geddes, stuck his dirk into her 
hind quarters and pinned her to the chest. After 
which, Montgomerie beat her with his sword and cast 
her out for dead ; but the next morning she was gone ; 
so there was no doubt as to her true character. Four 
or five nights after this, his servant, being in bed, 
" cryed out that Some of these catts had come in on 
him." Montgomerie ran to his aid, wrapt his plaid 
about the cat and thrust his dirk through her body, 
then smashed her head with the back of an axe, and 
cast her out like the first. The next morning she too 
was gone, and there was proof positive for another case. 
So as none of these cats belonged to the neighbourhood, 
and there were eight of them assembled together in one 
night, " this looking like witchcraft, it being threatened 
that none should thrive in my said house," William 
Montgomerie made petition to the Sherrif-Deput of 
Caithness, to visit "some person of bad fame," who 
was reported to have fallen sick immediately on this 
encounter, and search out if she had any wounds on her 
body or not. " This representation seeming all the 
time to be very incredulous and fabulous, the sheriff 
had no manner of regard yrto." But when, on the 12th 
of February, Margaret Nin-Gilbert was seen by one of 
her neighbours " to drop at her own door one of her 
leggs from the midle, and she, being under bad fame for 
witchcraft, the legg, black and putrified, was brought 
before the Sheriff-depute " (not the sheriff himself, the 
Earl of Caithness, who might have had a little more 



THE PLAGUE OF CATS. 171 

common sense) — then the said Sheriff-depute ordered 
Nin-Gilbert to be seized and examined. Margaret 
made short work of it. Being interrogated the 
8th of February, 1719, she confessed that she was 
under compact with the devil, whom she had met in the 
likeness of a black man as she was travelKng some 
long time byegone in ane evening ; confessed also that 
he sometimes appeared to her as a great black horse, 
and other times as if riding on a black horse, and some- 
times as a black cloud, and sometimes as a black hen. 
Confessed also that she was at William Montgomerie's 
house that evening, when he attacked her as a cat, and 
that he broke her leg with the dirk or axe, which since 
had fallen off from the rest of her body: also, that 
Margaret Olson was there with her, who, being 
stronger than she did cast her on the dirk when her 
leg was broken. She then delated four other women, 
one of whom, Helen Andrew, had been so crushed and 
maimed by Montgomerie, "that she dyed that same 
night of her wounds or few days yrafter:" and another, 
M'Huistan, " cast herself a few days afterwards from 
the rocks of Borrowstoun into the sea, since which 
time she was never seen ; while a third, Jannet Pyper, 
she identified as having a red petticoat on her. Asked 
how they managed not to be discovered said, the devil 
raised a fog or mist to conceal them." When her con- 
fession was ended, her accompKces were apprehended ; 
but she herself died in prison in a fortnight's time. Mar- 
garet Olson was then examined. She was " tryed in the 
shoulders " (for witches' marks), " where there were 
several small spots, some read, some blewish ; after a 
needle was driven in with great force almost to the eye 
she felt it not. Mr. Innes, Mr. Oswald, minister, and 
several honest women, and Bailzie Forbes, were wit- 



l72 THE WITCHES OF SC0TLA:ND. 

nesses to tliis. And further, that while the needle was 
in her shoulder, as aforesaid, she said, ' Am not I ane 
honest woman now ?' " So this instance of human wicked- 
ness and folly ended by the usual method of the cord 
and the stake. 



THE YOUNG HONOUEABLE'S DECEITS. 

January, 1720, saw distress and confusion at Calder 
in Mid Lothian. Lord Torphichen's third son, the Ho- 
nourable Patrick Sandilands, was bewitched, and the 
whole country was in excitement. If the devil could 
touch a Lord's son, who was safe? There was no 
doubt of the fact, let who would deny it. Lord Tor- 
phichen's son though he was, the Honourable Patrick 
Sandilands was worse holden than the meanest hind on 
the estate. He was buffeted about the room; flung 
down in trances, from which no horsewhippings — and 
it is to be hoped he had plenty of them, and well laid 
on — could revive him ; he pronounced prophecies ; was 
lifted up in the air ; taken off long journeys between the 
space of two flashes of light; had the gift of clair- 
voyance ; and put out all the candles by his very pre- 
sence — his powers depending, as such powers generally 
do, on darkness and confusion for their perfect develop- 
ment. Lord Torphichen soon left off the use of the horse- 
whip, and he and all the family came to the conclusion 
that the Honourable Patrick was bewitched. So they 
got hold of the vdtch, a brutish, ignorant, half-witted 
woman living in the village of Calder, and put her in 
prison, waiting her confession. As for that, it was not 
difficult to get at. Yes, she was a witch ; had been a 
witch for many years ; had once given the devil her own 
dead child to make a roast of; had made an image of 



THE LAST OF THE WITCHES; 173 

the young laird ; and had three associates, two women 
and a man. Mad William Mitchell, the Tinklarian 
Doctor,* as he was called, went on foot in ill weather 
without food from the West Bow to Lord Torphichen's 
house at Calder, to see what he could do towards discover- 
ing the devil in the witches. This was on the 14th of 
January — the day of the solenm fast, which was all the 
help that the awakening reason of the times would 
allow the Honourable Patrick Sandilands. True, the witch 
and her confederates were in prison, but there was no 
gallows planted, and no fire set : only the ministers, and 
elders, and saints, and people, convened in solemn and 
sacred prayer, to beseech God to drive out the devil 
from a lying, mischievous, hysterical lad. But crazy 
William Mitchell took very little by this move. Lord 
Torphichen not favouring his pretensions to special and 
private illumination. The sermon was preached in the 
Calder Kirk by the Eev. Mr. John Wilkie, minister of 
Uphall, the sorcerers being present, and was found 
so powerful that the devil was fairly exorcised, and 
the boy soon after wholly recovered. In time he went 
to sea, rose to the command of an East Indiaman, but 
perished in a storm, leaving a meritorious name singu- 
larly stained with boyish sins. " It brings us strangely 
near to this wild-looking affair," says Chambers, " that 
the present Lord Torphichen (1860) is only nephew to the 
witch-boy of Calder." 

THE LAST OF THE WITCHES. 

And now we draw near to the close of this fatal super- 
stition. In 1726, W^oodrow notes " some pretty odd 

* A crazy old Illuminatus, who had a " call," and wrote the 
Tinkler's Testament. 



174 THE WITCHES OF SCOTLAND. 

accounts of witches," had from a couple of Koss-shire 
men, but fails to give us very accurate details, save 
ouly that one of them at her death " confessed that they 
had, by sorcery, taken away the sight of one of the eyes 
of an Episcopal minister, who lost the sight of his eye 
upon a sudden, and could give no reason for it." And 
early in the year of 1727 * the last witch-fire was kindled 
with which the air of bonnie Scotland was polluted. 
Two poor Highland women, a mother and daughter, 
were brought before Captam David Eoss of Littledean, 
deputy-sheriff of Sutherland, charged with witchcraft 
and consorting with the deviL The mother was accused 
of having used her daughter as her " horse and hattock," 
causing her to be shod by the devil, so that she was ever 
after lame in both hands and feet ; and the fact being 
satisfactorily proved, and Captain David Koss being well 
assured of the same, the poor old woman was put into a 
tar-barrel and burned at Dornoch in the bright month 
of June. " And it is said that after being brought out 
to execution, the weather proving very severe, she sat 
composedly warming herseK by the fire prepared to 
consume her, while the other instruments of death were 
getting ready." The daughter escaped : afterwards 
she married and had a son who was as lame as herself; 
and lame in the same manner too ; though it does not 
seem that he was ever shod by the devil and witch- 
ridden. "And this son," says Sir Walter Scott, in 
1830, "was living so lately as to receive the charity 
of the present Marchioness of Stafford, Countess of 
Sutherland in her own right." 

This, then, is the last execution for witchcraft in 
Scotland ; and in June, 1736, the Acts Anentis Witch- 
craft were formally repealed. Henceforth, to the dread 
* Scott. Dickie. Chambers, &c. 



THE LAST OF THE WITCHES. 175 

of tlie timid, and the anger of the pious, the English 
Parliament distinctly opposed the express letter of the 
Law of God, " Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live ;" 
and declared the text upon which so much critical 
absm'dity had been talked, and in support of which so 
much innocent blood had been shed, vain, superstitious, 
impossible, and contrary to that human reason which is 
the highest law of God hitherto revealed unto men. 
But if Parliament could stay executions it could not 
remove beliefs, nor give rationality in place of folly. 
Not more than sixty years ago an old woman named 
Elizabeth M'Whirter* was *' scratched " by one Eagles- 
ham, in the parish of Colmonel, Ayrshire, because his 
son had fallen sick, and the neighbours said he was 
bewitched. Poor old Bessie M'Whirter was forced over 
the hills to the young man's house, a distance of three 
miles, and there made to kneel by his bedside and 
repeat the Lord's Prayer. When she had finished, the 
youth's father took a rusty nail and scratched the poor 
old creature's brow in the form of a cross ; scratched it 
so effectually that it was many weeks in heahng, and 
the scar remained to the last day of her life. If Eliza- 
beth M^AVhirter had lived a generation earher, she 
might have run a race with death and a tar barrel, and 
been defeated at the end, like the poor old wretch at 
Dornoch. 

But still the old faith lingers in those beautiful vales, 
and hides in the fastnesses of the mountain glens ; still 
brownies haunt the ruined places, and witches send 
forth bhght and bale at their wiU ; still the elfin people 
ride on the whirlwind and dance in the moonlight ; and 
the hill and the flood and the brae and the streamlet 
have their attendant spirits which vie with the church- 
* Dickie's ' Philosophy of Magic' 



176 THE WITCHES OF SCOTLAND. 

yard ghost in impotent malevolence to men. And the 
gift of second sight, though dying out because of these 
degenerate times of utilitarianism and power-loom 
weaving, is yet to be found where the old blood runs 
thickest, and the old ideas are least disturbed ; and still 
the whole nation clings with spasmodic force to its 
gloomy creed of the Predestined and the Elect, and 
holds by the early faith from whose narrow bounds 
others have emerged into a brighter and a wider path. 
No more witch-fires are now lighted on the Castle Hill ; 
no more grave and reverend divines give themselves up, 
like Mr. John Aird, to discovering the devil's mark 
stamped visibly on human flesh ; yet the heart of the 
people has not abandoned its ancient Grod, and though 
the altars may be dressed with the flowers of another 
season, and the name upon the plinth be carved in other 
characters, yet is the indwelling idol the same. The 
God which Calvinistic Scotland yet worships is the same 
God as that to which the witches and wizards of old 
were sacrificed ; he is the God of Superstition, the God 
of Condemnation, in whose temple Nature has no place, 
and Humanity no rights. 



I 



177 



^^t Wiitt)^tB oi €nglantr< 



" Every old woman with a wrinkled face, a furr'd 
brow, a hairy lip, a gobber tooth, a squint eye, a 
squeaking voice, or a scolding tongue, having a ragged 
coate on her back, a skull-cap on her head, a spindle in 
her hand, and a Dog or Cat by her side, is not only 
suspected but pronounced for a witch," says John 
Gaule ;* while Eeginald Scotf puts forth as his experi- 
ence : — " One sort of such as are said to be witches, 
are women which be commonly old, lame, blear-eyed, 
pale, fowle, and full of wrinckles ; poor, sullen, super- 
stitious, and Papists ; or such as know no religion ; in 
whose drousie minds the devill hath gotten a fine 
seat ; so as, what mischief, mischance, calamity or 
slaughter is brought to passe, they are easily per- 
swaded the same is done by themselves ; imprinting in 
their minds an earnest and constant imagination thereof. 
They are leane and deformed, showing melancholy in 
their faces, to the horror of all that see them. They 
are doting, scolds, mad, devihsh ; and not much differ- 
ing from them that are thought to be possessed with 
spirits, so firm and steadfast in their opinions, as whoso- 
ever shall only have respect to the constancy of their 
words uttered, would easily believe they were true 
* ' Select Cases of Conscience.' f * Discoverie of "Witclicraft.* 

N 



178 THE WITCHES OF ENGLAND. 

indeed." Dr. Harsnet, in his " Declaration of Popish 
Impostures," gives the subject a masterly touch of 
common sense and satire : — " These things," saith he, 
" are raked together out of old doating Heathen His- 
triographers, Wizzardizing Augiirs, Imposturizing 
Soothsayers, Dreaming Poets, Chimerical Conceiters, 
and Coiners of Fables, &c. Out of these is shap'd the 
true Idea of a Witcli, an old weather-beaten Crone, 
having her Chin and Knees meeting for Age, walking 
hke a Bow leaning on a Staff, Hollow-Ey'd, Untooth'd, 
Furrow'd on her Face, having her Lips trembling with 
the Palsy, going mumbling in the Streets : One ttat 
hath forgotten her Pater Noster, and yet hath a shrewd 
Tongue to call a Drab a Drab. If she hath learn'd of 
an old Wife in a Chimney End Pax, Max, Fax, for a 
Spell ; or can say Sir John Grantham's Curse for the 
Miller's Eels, All ye that have stolen the Miller's Eels, 
laudato Dominum de Coelis : And all they that have 
consented thereto, Benedicamus Domino: Why then 
beware, look about you, my Neighbours. If any of you 
have a Sheep sick of the Giddies, or a Stag of the 
Mumps, or a Horse of the Staggers, or a Knavish Boy 
of the School, or an idle Girl of the Wheel, or a young 
Drab of the Sullens, and hath not Fat enough for her 
Porrage, or Butter enough for her Bread, and she hath 
a little Help of the Epilepsy or Cramp, to teach her to 
roll her Eyes, wry her Mouth, gnash her Teeth, startle 
with her Body, hold her Arms and Hands stiff, &c. 
And then with an old Mother Nobs hath by Chance 
call'd her Idle young Housewife, or bid the Devil 
scratch her ; then no doubt but Mother Nobs is the 
Witch, and the young Girl is Owl-blasted, &c." Then 
he goes on to say, with more force and right judgment 
than one could have expected from one of his genera- 



THE WITCHES OF ENGLAND. 179 

tion : — " They that have their Brains baited, and their 
Fancies distemper'd with the Imaginations, and Appre- 
hensions of Witches, Conjurers, and Fairies, and all 
that Lymphatical Chimsera, I find to be marshall'd in 
one of these five Kanks : Cliildren, Fools, Women, 
Cowards, sick or black melancholick discompos'd W'its." 
These then are the sentiments of three somewhat 
wise and sane men, who lived in a time of universal 
madness, and gave their minds to the task of stemming 
the raging torrent. For the whole world was overrun 
with witches. From every town came crowds of these 
lost and damned souls; from every hovel peered out 
the cursing witch, or cried aloud for help the stricken 
victims. These poor and old and wretched beings, 
upon whose heads lighted the WTath of a world, and 
against whom every idle lad had a curse and a stone to 
fling at his will, were held capable of all but omnipo- 
tence. They could destroy the babe in the womb and 
make the "mother of many children childless among 
women ;" they could kill with a look and disable with 
a cm'se ; bring storms or sunshine as they listed ; by 
their " witch-ropes," artfully woven, di-aw to themselves 
all the profit of their neighbours' barns and breweries ; 
yet ever remained poor and miserable, glad to beg a 
mouthful of meat, or a can of sour milk from the hands 
of those whom they could ruin by half a dozen mut- 
tered words ; they could take on themselves what shapes 
they would, and transport themselves w^hither they 
would : no bolt or bar kept them out, no distance by 
land or sea was too great for them to accomplish ; a 
straw — a broomstick — the serviceable imp ever at hand 
— was enough for them ; and with a pot of magic oint- 
ment, and a charm of spoken gibberish, they might 
visit the king on his throne, or the lady in her bower, 



180 THE WITCHES OF ENGLAND. 

to do what ill was in their hearts against them, or to 
gather to themselves what gain and store they would. 
Yet with all this power the superstitions world of the 
time saw nothing doubtful or illogical in the fact of 
their exceeding poverty, and never stayed to think that 
if they could transport themselves through the air to 
any distance they chose, they would be but slippery 
holding in prison, and not very likely to remain there 
for the pleasure of being tortured and burnt at the end. 
But neither reason nor logic had anything to do with 
the matter. The whole thing rested on fear, and that 
practical atheism of fear, which denies the power of 
God and the wholesome beauty of Nature, to exalt in 
their stead the supremacy of the Devil. This belief in 
the Devil's material presence and power over men was 
the dark chain that bound them all. Even the boldest 
opponent of the Witchcraft Delusion dared not fling it 
off; not the bravest man or freest thinker could shake 
his mind clear of this terrible trammel, this bugbear, 
this mere phantasm of human fear and ignorance, this 
ghastly lie and morbid delusion, or abandon the slavish 
worship of Satan for the glad freedom of God and 
Nature. It was much when such men as Scot,* 
and Giffard,t and Gaule of Staughton,;]: Sir Kobert 
rilmer,§ Ady,|| Wagstaffe,^ Webster,** Hutchinson,tt 
and half a dozen more shining lights could bring them- 

* ' Discoverie of Witchcraft,' 1584. 

t ' Dialog:ue concerning Witclies,' 1603. 

X ' Select Cases of Conscience touching Witches and Witchcraft,' 1646. 

§ • Advertisement to the Jurymen of England,' 1653. 

II ' A Candle in the Dark,' 1656. 

^ ' Question of Witchcraft debated,' 1669. " Wagstaffe was a little 
crooked man, of a despicable presence. He was laughed at by the 
boys of Oxford because they said he himself looked like a wizard." 

** ' Displaying of Witchcraft,' 1677. 

ft ' Historical Essay concerning Witchcraft,' 1720. 



THE WITCHES OF ENGLAND. 181 

selves to deny the supernatural power of a few half- 
crazed old beggar-women, and plead for humanity and 
mercy towards them, instead of cruelty and condemna- 
tion ; but not one dare take the wider step beyond, 
and deny the existence of that phantom fiend, belief in 
whom wrought all this misery and despair. Even the 
very best of the time gave in to this delusion, and dis- 
cussed gravely the properties and proportions of what 
we know now were mere lies. 

" We find the illustrious author of the ' Novum 
Organum' sacrificing to courtly suppleness his philo- 
sophic truth, and gravely prescribing the ingredients 
for a witch's ointment ; — Selden maintaining that crimes 
of the imagination may be punished with death ; — The 
detector of Vulgar Errors, and the most humane of 
physicians giving the casting vote to the vacillating 
bigotry of Sir Matthew Hale ; — Hobbes, ever sceptical, 
penetrating, and sagacious, yet here paralyzed and 
shrinking from the subject, as if afraid to touch it ; — The 
adventurous explorer, who sounded the depths and 
channels of the ^ Intellectual System ' along all the 
'wide- watered' shores of antiquity, running after witches 
to hear them recite the Common Prayer and the Creed, 
as a rational test of guilt or innocence ; — The gentle 
spirit of Dr. Henry More, gu'ding on the armour of per- 
secution, and rousing itself from a Platonic reverie on 
the Divine Life to assume the hood and cloak of a 
familiar of the Inquisition; — and the patient and in- 
quiring Boyle, putting aside for a while his searches for 
the grand Magisterium, and listening, as if spell-bound, 
with gratified attention to stories of witches at Oxford 
and devils at Mascon."* In the Church and amongst the 

* Introduction to Potts's * Discovery of Witches,' edited by Jamea 
Crossley, Esq. Chetham Society. 1845. 



182 THE WITCHES OF ENGLAND. 

more notoriously " religious " men of the time it was 
worse. In Archbishop Cranmer's ' Articles of Visita- 
tion ' (1549) is this clause: — "You shall enquire 
whether you know of any that use Charms, Sorcery, 
Enchantments, Soothsaying, or any like Craft invented 
by the Devil ;" and Bishop Jewel, preaching before 
Queen Elizabeth (1558), informed her how that " witches 
and sorcerers within these last few years are mar- 
vellously increased in your Grace's realm. Your Grace's 
subjects pine away even unto their death, their colour 
fadeth, their flesh rotteth, their speech is benumbed, 
their senses are bereft ; I pray God they never practise 
further than upon the subject. . . . These eyes 
have seen most evident and manifest marks of their 
wickedness." At the next Parliament the new Bill 
against the detestable sin of witchcraft was passed, and 
Strype says, partly on account of the Lord Bishop's 
earnest objurgation. Dalton's* ' Country Justice ' (1655 ) 
shows to what a pass, a century later, witchcraft had 
come in credulous England. Truly Scot was right 

* Conjuration or invocation of any evil spirit was felony without 
benefit of clergy ; so also to consult, covenant with, entertain, feed, or 
reward any evil spirit, or to take up any dead body for charms or 
spells ; to use or practise witchcrafts, enchantment, charm, or sorcerj^ 
so that any one was lamed, killed, or pined, was felony without benefit 
of clergy, to be followed up by burning. Then ' The Country Justice ' 
goes on to give the legal signs of a witch, and those on which a magis- 
trate might safely act, as legal " discoveries." She was to be found 
and proved by insensible marks ; by teats ; by imps in various shapes, 
such as toads, mice, flies, spiders, cats, dogs, &c. ; by pictures of wax 
or clay ; by the accusations of the afflicted ; by her apparition seen by 
the afflicted as coming to torment them ; by her own sudden or fre- 
quent inquiries at the house of the sick ; by common report ; by the 
accusations of the dying ; and the bleeding of the corpse at her touch ; 
by the testimony of children ; by the afflicted vomiting pins, needles, 
straw, &c. ; in short, by all the foolery, gravely formularized, to be 
found in the lies and deceptions hereafter related. 



THE WITCH OF BERKELEY. 183 

when he said that his greatest adversaries were " young 
ignorance and old customs." They have always been 
the greatest adversaries of all truth. Of late, thank 
God, the march of humanity has been steadily, if slowly, 
towards the daylight ; but at present you and I, my 
reader, have to do with the most debasing superstition 
that ever afflicted history, in the matter of those poor 
wretched servants of the devil — those witches and 
wizards, who somehow managed to lose on all sides — to 
suffer in time and be ruined for eternity, and to get 
only ill-will and ill-usage from man and fiend alike. 



THE WITCH OF BERKELEY. 

One of our earliest English witches, so early indeed 
that she becomes mythical and misty and out of all 
possible proportion, was the celebrated Witch of 
Berkeley,* who got the reward of her sins in the middle 
of the ninth century, leaving behind her a tremendous 
lesson, by which, however, after generations did not 
much profit. The witch had been rich and the witch 
had been gay, but the moment of reckoning had to 
come in the morning ; the feast had been noble and 
well enjoyed, but the terrible account had to be paid 
when all was over; and the poor witch found her 
ruddy-cheeked apple, now that the rind was off and 
eaten, filled with nothing but dust and ashes — which 
she must digest as best she may. As the moment of 
her death approached, she called for the monks and the 
nuns of the neighbouring monasteries, and sent for her 

* Thomas Wright's ' Narrative of Sorcery and Magic' Southey's 
Ballad. 



184 TH:E witches of ENGLAND. 

children to hear her confession ; and then she told 
them of the compact she had made, and how the Devil 
was to come for her body as well as her soul. *' But," 
said she, " sew me in the hide of a stag, then place me 
in a stone coffin, and fasten in the covering lead and 
iron. Upon this place another stone, and chain the 
whole down with heavy chains of iron. Let fifty 
psalms be sung each night, and fifty masses be said 
by day, to break the power of the demons. If you 
can thus keep my body for three nights safe, on the 
fourth day you may bury it — the Devil will have sought 
and not found." The monks and the nuns did as they 
were desired ; and, on the first night, though the 
demons kept up a loud howling and wailing outside the 
church, the priests conquered, and the old witch slept 
undisturbed. On the second night the demons were 
more fierce and clamorous, and the monks and the 
nuns told their beads faster and faster ; but the fiends 
were getting more powerful as time went on, and at last 
broke open the gates of the monastery, in spite of prayer 
and bolt and bar ; and two chains of the coffin burst 
asunder, but the middle one held firm. On the third 
night the fiends raged sore and wild. The monastery 
was shaken to its foundations, and the monks and the 
nuns almost forgot their paters and their aves in the 
uproar that drowned their voices and quailed their 
hearts ; but they still went on, until, with an awful 
crash, and a yell from all the smaller demons about, a 
Devil, larger and more terrible than any that had come 
yet, stalked into the church and up to the foot of 
the altar, where the old woman and her coffin lay. 
Here he stopped, and bade the witch rise and follow 
him. Piteously she answered that she could not — she 
was kept down by the chain in the middle : but the 



EARLY HISTORIC TRIALS. 185 

Devil soon settled that difficulty ; for he put his foot 
to the coffin, and broke the iron chain like a bit of 
burnt thread. Then off flew the covering of lead and 
iron, and there lay the witch, pale and horrible to see. 
Slowly she uprose, blue, dead, stark, as she was ; and 
then the Devil took her by the hand, and led her to the 
door where stood a gigantic black horse, whose back 
was all studded with iron spikes, and whose nostrils, 
breathing fire, told of his infernal manger below. The 
Devil vaulted into the saddle, flung the witch on before 
him, and off and away they rode — the yells of the 
clamom'ing demons, and the shrieks of the tortured 
soul, sounding for hours, far and wide, in the ears of the 
monks and the nuns. So here too, in this legend, as in 
all the rest, the Devil is greater than God, and prayer 
and penitence inefficacious to redeem iniquity. 



EARLY HISTORIC TRIALS. 

Coming out from these purely legendary times, we 
find ourselves on the more solid ground of an actual 
legal record — the *Abbreviatio Placitorum ;'* which 
informs us that in the tenth year of King John's reign, 
" Agnes, the wife of Odo the merchant, accused G-ideon 
of sorcery (de sorceria), and she was acquitted by the 
judgment of the (hot) iron." This is the earliest 
historic trial to be found in any legal document in Eng- 
land. Nothing more appears until 1324, when two Co- 
ventry men,t specially appointed out of twenty-seven im- 
plicated, undertook the slaying of the King, Edward II., 

* Thomas Wright's ' Narrative of Sorcery and Magic,' and ' Trial 
of Dame Alice Kyteler.' 
t Idem. 



186 THE WITCHES OF ENGLAND. 

the two Dispensers his favourites, the Prior of Co- 
ventry, his caterer and his steward, because they had 
oppressed the town, and dealt unrighteously with its 
inhabitants. These two men went to a famous necro- 
mancer then living in Coventry, called Master John of 
Nottingham, whom, with his servant Kobert Marshall 
of Leicester, they engaged to perform the work required. 
But Robert Marshall proved faithless, and betrayed his 
master to the authorities ; telling them how they had 
received a sum of money for the work in hand, with 
which sum of money they had bought seven pounds of 
wax and two yards of canvas, to make seven images — 
six for the six already enumerated, the seventh for one 
Richard de Lowe, who had done no one any harm, but 
on whom they wished to try the effect of the spell, as a 
modern anatomist would try his experiments on cats, or 
dogs, or rabbits. He told them how he and Master 
John of Nottingham had been to a ruined house under 
Shorteley Park, about half a league from Coventry, 
where they remained at work from the Monday after 
the Feast of Saint Nicholas to the Saturday after the 
Peast of Ascension, making these images of wax and 
canvas by which they were to bewitch their noble 
enemies to deatL And first, to try the potency of the 
charm. Master John took a long leaden pin, and struck 
it two inches deep into the forehead of the image repre- 
senting Richard de Lowe, upon which Richard was 
found writhing and in great pain, screaming " harrow !" 
and having no knowledge of any man ; and so he 
languished for some days. Then Master John drew 
out the leaden pin from the brow, and struck it into the 
heart of the image, when immediately Richard de Lowe 
died, as any number of witnesses could testify. The 
necromancer and his man, and the twenty-seven 



EARLY HISTORIC TRIALS. 187 

Coventry men implicated in this bit of sorcery, were 
tried at common law, and acquitted for want of 
evidence. 

That same year, too, occurred one of the most pic- 
turesque trials for witchcraft known : the trial of Dame 
Alice Kyteler, which Mr. Wright, with so much industry 
and learning, has exhumed from the dusty old records 
where it was buried, and set out into the light of present 
knowledge and apprehension. But Dame Alice was an 
Irishwoman, and so does not rightly come into a book 
on English witches ; else it would be a pleasant, if sad, 
labour to tell how she was arrested on the charge of 
holding nightly conferences with her spirit or familiar, 
Artisson, who was sometimes a cat, and sometimes a 
black shaggy dog, and sometimes a black man with 
two tall black companions, each carrying an iron rod 
in his hand — to which fiendish Proteus she had sacrificed, 
in the highway, nine red cocks, and nine peacocks' eyes ; 
and also for having, between complines and twiKght, 
raked all the filth of Kilkenny streets to the doors of her 
son-in-law William Outlawe, murmuring to herself — 

" To the house of William, my sonne. 
Hie all the wealth of Kilkennie towne." 

Of how, too, she blasphemously travestied the holy 
sacrament, having a wafer with the Devil's name stamped 
on it instead of Christ's ; and how she had a pipe of 
ointment wherewith she greased a staff "upon which 
she amboUed and gallopped thorough thicke and thin, 
when and what manner she listed." But it does not 
belong to my present subject : nor to tell how one of 
her accomplices, poor weak Petronilla de Meath, was 
burnt at Kilkenny, not having strength or courage to 
resist the monstrous confession forced upon her; but 
how the other, Basil, escaped, according to the natural 



188 THE WITCHES OF ENGLAND. 

law by which the strongest always come off the best. 
Perhaps the fact that Dame Alice took refuge in 
England may give her a slight claim to a place in 
these pages ; but the question is doubtful, so we must 
let her go— as also her son-in-law, William Outlawe, 
whose strict imprisonment of nine weeks led to no bad 
result, and, let us hope, cooled his blood, which was a 
trifle too near to boiling point. 

Then we stumble over the threshold of the chamber 
where Friars Bacon and Bungay are sleeping, while 
stupid Miles is watching the Brazen Head whose brief 
solemn words were spoken in vain ; going forward just a 
few paces until we come to the death-beds of Bungay and 
Vandermast, and Friar Bacon's clever cheating of the 
Devil at last. But we are still on the outskirts of 
legendary land, and must go on to the middle of the 
fourteenth century before we get a firm hold. About 
this time the subject of witchcraft occupied much of 
the attention and thought of the Church, but the 
priests had not yet quite closed their fingers round it ; 
for in 1371 a man was arrested for sorcery, and 
" brought before the justices of the King's Bench, by 
whom he was acquitted for want of evidence, which 
shows that it was still looked upon merely as an offence 
against common law." * It was only Avhen it became the 
superstition which some men are pleased to call " reli- 
gion" that it got stained with its deepest dyes. Early in 
1406 Henry lY. gave instructions to the Bishop of 
Norwich to search for the sorcerers, witches, and necro- 
mancers reported to be rather rife in that respectable 
diocese, and if he could not convert them from the evil 
of their ways, he was to bring them to speedy punish- 

* ' Introduction to the Narrative of the Proceedings against Dame 
Alice Kyteler.' By Thomas Wright. 1843. 



EARLY HISTORIC TRIALS. 189 

ment; and in 1432 the Privy Council ordered to be 
seized and examined a Franciscan friar of Worcester, 
by name Thomas Nortlifield ; another friar, John Ash- 
well ; John Yii'ley " a clerk ;" and Margery Jourde- 
maine — the same Margery generally called the Witch 
of Eye, who, nine years later, was burnt at Smithfield 
for her complicity in the treasonable practices of Dame 
Eleanor of Gloucester. In 1441 Dame Eleanor herself 
was arrested, and " put in holt, for she was suspecte 
of treason ;" and with her the Witch of Eye, who was 
burnt ; and Eoger, a clerk " longing to her," who was 
placed on a high scaffold against St. Paul's Cross on the 
Sunday, and there " arraied like as he should never 
thrive in his garnementys ;" while heaped up round 
about were all his instruments taken with him, to 
be showed among the people, and create a proper fear 
and horror in their mind. The end of poor Koger the 
clerk was, that he was dragged from the Tower to 
Tyburn, there hanged, beheaded, and quartered; his 
head set on London Bridge, and his four quarters 
sent — one to Hereford, and one to Oxenford, another to 
York, and the fourth to Cambrigge. As for Dame 
Eleanor, that proud, dark, unscrupulous heroiae of 
romance, every one knows the story of her disgrace 
and shame ; how she came from London to Westminster, 
and walked through the streets of the city barefooted 
and bareheaded, carrying the waxen taper of two 
pounds' weight, and doing penance before all the crowd 
of citizens assembled to see her " on her foot and 
hoodies ;" and how she offered up her taper on the high 
altar of " Poules ;" and when all was done, was sent to 
Chester prison, " there to byde while she lyveth." 

After her, in 1478, comes " the high and noble prin- 
cesse Jaquet," Duchess of Bedford, charged with having, 



190 THE \\^TCHES OF ENGLAND. 

by the aid of " an image of lede, made lyke a man of 
arms, conteyning the length of a mannes fynger, and 
broken in the myddes, and made fast with a wyre," 
turned the love of King Edward IV. from one Dame 
Elianor Butteler daughter of the old Earl of Shrews- 
bury, to whom he was affianced, unto her own child, 
Elizabeth Grey, sometime wife to Sir John Grey, 
knight ; and in 1483 poor Jane Shore was bound to do 
penance, walkiag bareheaded and barefooted, clad only 
in her kirtle, carrying a wax taper, and acknowledging 
her sins, because Kichard of Gloucester had a withered 
arm, and wanted to put a few enemies out of the w iiy 
of that arm and its desires. He employed the same 
accusation against many of those enemies, but so pa- 
tently for political motives and without even the sem- 
blance of reason, that these attainders can scarcely be 
set down in any manner to the charge of witchcraft. 
Then in 1484 came the bull of Innocent VIII., which 
gave authority to the inquisitors to " convict, imprison, 
and punish " the unfortunate servants of the Devil, who 
thus found themselves a mark for every one's shaft. 

In Henry the Eighth's time treasure-seeking was the 
most fashionable phase of necromancy. There was 
Neville of Wolsey's household, who consulted Wood — 
gentleman, magician, and treasure-seeker extraordinary 
— but only for a charm or magic ring which should bring 
him into favour with his prince, saying that his master 
the Cardinal had such an one, and he would fain parti- 
cipate ; and he did at last get Wobd to make him one 
that would bring him the love of women. Wood could 
find treasures wherever hidden, and was sure of the 
philosopher's stone ; nay, he would " chebard " (jeopard) 
his life but that he could make gold as he listed, and 
offered to remain in prison till he had accomplished it, 



EAKLY HISTOKIC TRIALS. 191 

" twelve months on silver and twelve and a half on 
gold." In this same reign, too, was arrested William 
Stapleton for sorcery. William* was a monk of St. 
Benet in the Holm, Norfolk, and William loved not 
his monkish life ; so he got out, seeking money to 
buy his dispensation. And not having the money at 
hand himself, nor knowing how to get it, he took to 
treasure-seeking as the easiest manner open to him 
of making a fortune. But his conjurations and his 
magic staff only led him to some Roman remains, and 
nothing more ; so he borrowed of a friend instead, then 
settled in Norfolk, and turned to treasure-seeking again, 
uselessly ; got into intrigues that did him no good ; and 
had three spirits, Andrea Malchus, Inchubus, and 
Oberion — the last a dumb devil who would not speak, 
being in the service of my Lord Cardinal. 

In 1521 the Duke of Buckingham, died on the scaf- 
fold, led into some imprudent actions by the predictions 
of his familiar magician, one friar Hopkins ; and Hop- 
kins, to make amends, died broken-hearted shortly 
after. And there was the Maid of Kent (1534), Eliza- 
beth Barton, who had trances and gave revelations, and 
was on intimate terms with Mary Magdalen and the 
Virgin, and who was probably a " sensitive " made use 
of by the Catholics to try and frighten the King from 
his marriage with the " gospel eyes;" but poor Eliza- 
beth Barton came to a sad pass with her revelations 
and trances ; and Mary Magdalen, who had given her 
a letter written in heaven and all of gold, lorgot to 
forewarn or shield her from her cruel and shameful end 
at Tyburn that cloudy fitful day of April, with the 
gallows standing out against the flecked sky, and the 
poor raving nun, half-enthusiast half-impostor, praying 
* Wright's ' Narrative of Sorcery and Magic' 1851. 



192 THE WITCHES OF ENGLAND. 

bareheaded at its foot — she and her accomplices 
waiting for the moment to die. 

In 1541 we find a nobler name on the scaffold — 
Lord Hungerford — " beheaded for procuring certain 
persons to conspire that they might know how long 
Henry YIII. would live ;" and that same year an Act 
was passed against false prophecies, and another against 
conjurations, witchcraft, and sorcery, making it felony 
without benefit of clergy. But six years later Ed- 
ward VI. abrogated that statute ; not for any tender- 
ness to witches, but because with it was bound up a pro- 
hibition against pulling down crosses. In 1549 Ket's 
rebellion was troublesome ; its vigour due partly to the 
old prophecy repeated through the plains of Norfolk — 

" Hob, Die, and Hie, witli Clubs and elouted Shoon, 
Shall fill up DufBn-dale with slaughtered Bodies soon." 

And then we come to nothing more until 1559, when 
Elizabeth " renewed the same article of inquiry for 
sorcerers," but punishing the first conviction only with 
the pillory. The following year eight men were taken 
up for conjurations and sorcery, and tried at West- 
minster, where they had to purge themselves by con- 
fession, penitence, and a repudiating oath. In 1562 
the Earl and Countess of Lennox, Anthony Pool, 
Anthony Eortescue, and some others, were condemned 
for treason and meddling with sorcerers ; though, 
indeed, Elizabeth herself was not free from either 
the superstition or its practice ; for did she not pa- 
tronize Dr. Dee and his " skryer " John Kelly, with 
his ranting about Madimi in her gown of " changeable 
sey," and all the other spirits who came in and out of 
the " show-stone," and talked just the same kind of 
rubbish as spirits talk now in modern circles? But 
the poor " figure-flinger, with his tin pictures," was a 



EARLY HISTORIC TRIALS. 193 

sorcerer not to be protected, so got tried and con- 
demned — poor figure-flinger ! 

In 1562, the year of Lady Lennox's business, a new 
Act against witchcraft was passed; and in 1589 one 
Mrs. Deir practised conjuration against the Queen, for 
which she was tried, but acquitted for want of evidence ; 
but the Queen had excessive anguish in her teeth that 
year, by night and by day. When Ferdinand Earl of 
Derby died, about this time, of perpetual and unceasing 
sickness, a waxen image was found in his chamber 
stuffed with hair the exact colour of his ; which suffi- 
ciently accounted for his illness and the mysterious man- 
ner of his death, though a Sadducee and sceptic might 
have whispered of poison, or a physician have spoken 
of cholera ; from which disease indeed, by the minute 
S}Tnptoms so carefully detailed, the poor earl's death 
seems to have been — if not from poison, which might 
have produced the same effects. StiU, the accusation of 
sorcery was so convenient — such a cloak for viler sins ! 
The latter half of Elizabeth's reign was disgraced by 
many witch persecutions, for the subject was beginning 
to attract painful notice now ; and, though it was not 
till James I. had set the smouldering fragments aU 
a-blaze that the worst of the evils were done, still enough 
w^as doing now for the philosopher to deplore and the 
humanitarian to lament. In 1575 many were hanged 
at Barking ; in 1579 three were executed at Chelms- 
ford, four at Abingdon, and two at Cambridge. In 
1582 thirteen at St. Osith's, the evidence against one 
being that she had been heard to talk to something 
when alone in her house ; while of the other, a woman 
swore that she looked through her window one day, 
when she was out, and there " espied a spirite to looke 
out of a potcharde from under a clothe, the nose thereof 

o 



194 THE WITCHES OP ENGLAND. 

being browne like unto a ferret." In 1585 one was 
hanged at Tyburn and one at Stanmore ; 1589 saw 
three sent into eternity at Chelmsford ; in 1593 we 
have the witches of Warbois ; and two years later 
(1595) three at Barnet and Brainford ; in 1597 several 
at Derby and Stafford ; so that by degrees the thing 
came to be a notorious matter of social life ; and the 
poor and the aged and the disliked lived in fear and 
peril, daily increasing. At this time, too, possessions 
were many and ghosts walked abroad without let or 
hindrance. Kichard Lee saw one at Canterbury 
(1575), and Master Gaymore and others saw another 
at Eye two years after. " But," says Eeginald Scot, 
" certainely some one knave in a white sheet hath 
cosened and abused many thousands that way, spe- 
cially when Kobin Goodfellow kept such a coile in the 
Country. For you shall understand that these bugs 
specially are spied and feared of sicke folke, children, 
women, and cowards, which, through weaknesse of 
minde and body, are shaken with vain dreames and 
continuall fear. The Scythians, being a stout and a 
warlike nation, as divers writers report, never see any 
vaine sights, or spirits. It is a common saying, a Lion 
feareth no bugs. But in our childhood our mothers' 
maids have so terrified us with an ugly devil having 
homes on his head, fire in his mouth, and a taile at his 
back, eyes like a bason, fanges like a dog, clawes like 
a beare, a skinne like a ISIiger, and a voice roring like 
a Lion, whereby we start and are afraid when we hear 
one cry Bough ; they have so fraied us with bull- 
beggars, sphits, urchens, elves, hags, fames, satyrs, 
pans, fauns, sylens (syrens ?), kit with the can stick e, 
tritons, centaures, dwarfes, giants, imps, calcats, con- 
jurors, nymphes, changelings, incubus, Hobin Good- 



THE AFFLICTIONS OF ALEXANDER NYNTDGE. 195 

fellow, the spoorn. the mare, the man in the oke, the 
hell-waine, the firedrake, the puckle, Tom thombe, 
hob-gobbin, Tom tumbler, boneles, and such other 
bugs, that we are afraid of our own shadowes ; inso- 
much as some never fear the devil, but in a dark 
night ; and then a polled sheep is a perillous beast, and 
many times is taken for our fathers soul, specially in a 
churchyard, where a right hardy man heretofore scant 
durst passe by night, but his haire would stand upright. 
For right grave writers report, that spirits most often 
and specially take the shape of women, appearing to 
monks, &c., and of beasts, dogs, swine, horses, goats, 
cats, haires, of fowles, as crowes, night owles and 
shreek owles ; but they delight most in the likenesse 
of snakes and dragons.'^ All of which " wretched and 
cowardly infidelity " was rampant in England when 
good Queen Bess ruled the land — ^rampant doubly, so 
that there was no holding in of this furious madness 
after James I. had got his foot in the stirrup, and was 
riding a race neck and neck with the Devil. But I 
must turn back a few years, and tell of 



THE AFFLICTIONS OF ALEXANDER NYNDGE, 

a precious babe of grace snatched from destruction. 
They are to be found in ' A Booke declaring the fear- 
full vexation of one Alexander Xyndge, Beynge moste 
BCorriblye tormented wyth an euyll spirit, the xx. dale 
of Januarie. In the yere of our Lorde 1573, at Lyer- 
ingswell in Suffolke ;' and this book sets forth the 
details of the various fits which Alexander ^yndge in- 
dulged in, for the purpose, as it seems, of enabling his 
brother Edward to prove his power of exorcism. His 



196 THE WITCHES OF ENGLAND. 

first fit began one evening at seven — his fatlier, mother, 
brothers, and the residue of the household being present ; 
his chest and body swelled, his eyes stared wildly as if 
starting from their sockets, his back bent inward : the 
household was disturbed and sore affrighted, but brother 
Edward had courage enough to say that it was an evil 
spirit, and undertook to exorcise it. So he charged the 
foul fiend to come out of him, and the countenance of 
his brother became more sad and fearful than it was 
before. Edward was not dismayed but returned to the 
conflict full of confidence, not giving in even when 
Alexander and the devil had a wrestle together ; or 
rather when the devil within him seemed as if he would 
have torn him to pieces, so great was his rage and 
malice. After some time of this kind of work, Edward 
got the devil to confess to one or two little matters. In 
the first place his name was Aubon, and he came last 
from Ireland ; he had come for Alexander's soul, 
which his brother was not disposed to give up ; and by 
a strange slip of the tongue he called Christ his Re- 
deemer: but Edward rebuked him, as became a learned 
M.A., reminding him that He was Alexander's Redeemer 
in truth, but not his, the foul fiend's. Even this 
palpable blunder did not enhghten the Nyndge house- 
hold as to whose was really the "hollow ghostly" voice 
proceeding out of Alexander's chest. At last, when 
Edward had tired him very much, and powerfully 
shaken him, he said, gruffly, " Bawe wawe, bawe 
wawe !" and Alexander was transformed, " much like a 
picture in a play," while a terrible roaring voice sounded 
"Hellsownd." Then they opened the windows to allow 
the foul spirit to escape ; and in two minutes Alexander 
leaped up joyfully, crying, "He is gone! he is gone!'* 
After this he had a second, and then a third, attack ; 



ADE DAYIE'S MOURNING. 197 

but his brother, praying in his right ear, comforted him 
and finally cured him, for he was never after tormented. 
Luckily he had not fixed upon any unhappy old woman 
as the cause of his disorder, so it passed for a case 
of simple "possession," which prayer and supplication 
had overcome. 



ADE DAYIE'S MOURNING.* 

Ade Davie, wife of Simon Davie husbandman, had a 
wiser man for her husband, simple and unlearned as he 
was, than had many a wretched creatm^e for her judge. 
Ade suddenly became sad and pensive as she never had 
been in times past. Her husband did his best to cheer 
her, but Ade still continued sorrowful; when, at last 
her burden grew heavier than she could bear, falling 
down at Simon's feet she besought him to forgive her, 
for that she had grievously offended both God and him, 
" Her poor husband being abashed at this her behaviour, 
comforted her as he could ; asking her the cause of her 
trouble and greefe ; who told him that she had, con- 
trary to God's law, and to the offence of all good Chris- 
tians, to the injury of him, and specially to the losse of 
her own soul, bargained and given her soul to the devHl, 
to be dehvered unto him within short space. "V^^lere- 
nnto her husband answered, saying, ' Wife, be of good 
cheer, this thy bargain is void and of none effect ; for 
thou hast sold that which is none of thine to sell : sith it 
belongeth to Christ, who hath bought it, and dearly 
paid for it, even with his blood, which he shed upon the 
crosse ; so as the devil hath no interest in thee.' After 
this, with like submission, teares, and penitence, she 
* Reginald Scot. 



198 THE WITCHES OF ENGLAND. 

said unto him, 'Oli, husband, I have yet committed 
another fault, and done you more injury ; for I have 
bewitched you and four children.' * Be content,' quoth 
he, * by the grace of God, Jesus Christ can unwitch us ; 
for none evill can happen to them that fear God.' " 

This fresh and pure idyl comes to us with a sweet and 
wholesome savour, in the midst of the foul quagmires of 
superstition where it stands ; and that poor husbandman's 
simple faith in God's goodness and his wife's virtue is 
more touching than many a grand heroic deed which 
has the suffrages of all history to float it through the 
life of the world. Simon Davie was an unlettered man, 
but he was strong-hearted and believing, and, thinking 
that earnest prayer might comfort his wife, when the 
time approached for the Devil to come and close his 
bargain, knelt down by her and prayed, she joining 
with him fervently. Then they heard a low rumbling 
noise below which made the windows shake, and which 
convinced the poor wife that it was the Devil trying to 
take possession of her soul, but barred out from the 
chamber by the fervent prayers aforesaid. In the 
morning it was found that the noise came from a dog 
which had devom-ed a sheep that was newly flayed and 
hung against the wall ; and in due time, Ade Davie 
recovering her reason — for she was crazed, and took 
every fire to be the fire lighted to burn her for witch- 
craft — came to the knowledge that she had never sold 
her soul to the Devil at all, and had never bewitched 
husband or children, but had always been a faithful 
wife and fond mother — afflicted with a light brain, and 
nervous imagination. • 



199 



THE POSSESSION OF IVULDEED NORRINGTON.* 

J\[ilclred, the " base daughter " of Alice Norrington, 
being seventeen years of age, was likewise possessed 
of the Devil, in much the same way as Alexander 
Kyndge had been. She lived as servant with William 
Spooner of Westwell, in the county of Kent, and her 
case attracted gTeat attention. All the divines of the 
neighbourhood assembled at Spooner 's house on the 
loth of October, 1574, to endeavour to cast out the 
Devil by such means of prayer and exorcism as they 
had at their command. Powerfully did they pray; 
mightily roared the Devil ; '' And tho' we did com- 
mand him many times, in the Name of God, and of his 
Son Jesus Christ, and in his mighty Power to speak, 
yet he would not, until he had gone through all his 
Delays, as roaring, crying, striving, and gnashing of 
teeth, and otherwise, with mowing and other terrible 
Countenances, and was so strong in the Maid that four 
men could scarce hold her down." This continued for 
about two hours, and then he spoke out, but very 
strangely, crying, "He comes, he comes," and "He 
goes, he goes." When charged to tell the exorcists 
who had sent him, he said, " I lay in her way like a Log, 
and I made her run like Fire ; but I could not hurt her." 
" And why so ?" said we. " Because God kept her," 
said he. When asked when he came to her, he said, 
"At night, in her bed." And when charged to tell 
them his name, he said, " The Devil, the Devil." But 
being still more powerfully exhorted, he roared and 
cried as before, and spake terrible words : " I will kill 
her ; I will kill her ; I will tear her in pieces ; I wiU 

Keginald Scot. Dr. Hutchinson. 



200 THE WITCHES OF ENGLAND. 

kill you all !" Asked again, and conjured so that he 
could not escape, he was forced to confess that his 
name was Satan, and Little Devil, and Partner, and 
that old Alice had sent him — old Alice in Westwell 
Street, with whom he had lived these twenty years shut 
up in two bottles. " Where be they T' said we. " In 
the back side of her house," said he. " In what place ?" 
said we. " Under the wall," said he. The other was 
at Kennington, in the ground. Then we asked him 
what old Alice had given him. He said, " Her will, 
her will." "What did she bid thee do?" said we. 
" Kill her maid," he said, because she did not love her. 
He then said that he had been to the vicarage loft in 
the likeness of two birds, and that old Alice had sent 
him and his servant (another devil) to kill those whom 
she loved not. " How many hast thou killed for her ?'' 
said we. " Three," said he. *' Who are they ?" said 
we. "A man and his child," said he. "What were 
their names ?" said we. " The child's name was 
Edward," said he. "What more than Edward?" said 
we. "Edward Ager," said he. "What more?'' said 
we. "Eichard Ager," said he. "Where dwelt the man 
and the child ?" said we. " At Dig, at Dig," said he. 
This Eichard Ager was a gentleman of forty pounds' 
land by the year ; a very honest man, but would often 
say he was bewitched, and languished long ere he died. 
The Devil — or Mildred for him — said that he had also 
killed Wotton's wife, and that he used to fetch old 
Alice meat and drink and corn, and that he had been at 
many houses (named) doing her wicked will. Then he 
was adjured so that he could not resist, when he cried 
out that he would go, he would go, and so he departed. 
Then said the maid, " He is gone. Lord have mercy 
on me ! for he would have killed me !" So those minis- 



MISCELLANEOUS. 201 

ters and neighbours present all kneeled down and 
thanked God for Mildred's deliverance ; and she kept 
her countenance, and did not betray herself. But a 
short time after, the " bruit of her divinity and miracu- 
lous trances" spreading far and wide, Mr. Thomas 
Wotton, " a man of great Worship and Wisdom, and 
for deciding and ordering of Matters, of rare and singu- 
lar Dexterity," got to the true understanding of the 
case, when "the Fraud was found, and the cozenage 
confessed, and she received condign Punishment." 
After her trial, and when she knew the worst, she 
"showed her Feats, Illusions, and Trances, with the 
Kesidue of all her miraculous Works in the Presence of 
divers Gentlemen of great Worship and Credit at 
Boston-Malherb, in the House of the said Mr. Wotton." 
"Now compare this wench with the witch of Endor, 
and you shall see that both the cozenages may be done 
by one art," says Eeginald Scot. 



MISCELLANEOUS. 

It was in this same year that x\gnes Brigs and Eachel 
Pindar had to do penance at St. Paul's Cross, in 
London,* having been convicted of cheat and imposture 
in pretending to vomit pins and straws and old "clouts," 
and other such impossibilities ; and for counterfeiting 
possession by the Devil, which the philosophers of the 
time thought was no subject to trifle with, or affect in 
any manner whatsoever. And then, a few years later, 
a young Dutchman living at Maidstone was dispos- 
sessed of ten devils, and the mayor of the tovm got 
to subscribe his name to the account, which turned out 

* Stow. 



202 THE WITCHES OF ENGLAND. 

afterwards to be nothing but fraud and lies. In 1579* 
four witches were hung up together, the chief accusation 
against one of them, Mother Still, being, " that she did 
kill one Saddocke with a touch on the shoulder, for not 
keeping promise with her for an old cloak, to make her 
a safeguard ; and that she was hanged for her labour :" 
and another, EUein Smith, was executed at Maldon,t 
on the testimony of her little son of eight, who accused 
her of having three spirits — Great Dick in a wicker 
bottle. Little Dick in a leathern bottle, and Willet kept 
in a woolpack. Upon which the house was commanded 
to be searched, and " the bottles and packe were found, 
but the spirites were banished awaie." 

At the Rochester assizes, held 1591, Margaret 
Simons, J the wife of John Simons, of Brenchley in Kent, 
was arraigned for witchcraft, on the charge of bewitch- 
ing the son of John Ferrall the vicar. An ill-con- 
ditioned young cub was he, and prentice to Robert 
Scotchford, clothier ; and the father himself seems to 
have been little better than his son — making a bad pair 
between them for the teacher and "pattern child" of 
Brenchley. There had long been ill blood between 
Mr. John Ferrall, vicar, and Margaret Simons ; and 
one day it came somewhat to a head ; for, when the 
boy was passing Margaret's house on his way home, her 
little dog jumped out at him and barked. "Which 

* Scot, quoting a little pamphlet, without a title, which I cannot 
find. 

t From an extremely rare black-letter book, entitled ' A Detection 
of damnable driftes, practized by three Witches arraigned at Chekns- 
forde, in Essex, at the laste Assizes there holden, whiche were executed 
in Aprill 1579. Set forthe to discouer the Ambushementes of Sathan, 
whereby he would surprise us lulled in securitie, and hardened with 
contempte of God's vengeance threatened for our offences. Imprinted 
at London, for Edward White, at the little North-dore of Paules.' 

t Scot. 



I 



MISCELLANEOUS. 203 

thing the boy taking in evil part," says Eeginald Scot, 
in his quaint, bhmt, incisive way, " drew his knife, and 
pursued him therewith even to her door; whom she 
rebuked with some such words as the boy disclaimed, 
and yet neverthelesse would not be perswaded to depart 
in a long time." The consequence of the fray was, that 
the boy in five or six days' time fell dangerously ill. 
Then the vicar, " who thought himself so privileged as 
he little mistrusted that God would visit his children 
with sicknesse," declared that his son was bewitched by 
Margaret Simons, who also had done the like evil to 
himself; for whenever he wished to read the service 
with special emphasis and care his voice always failed 
him, so that his congregation could scarce hear him at 
all. Margaret made answer that his voice was always 
hoarse and low, and particularly when he strained him- 
self to speak loudest then it ever failed him : but there 
was no witchcraft in the case, for all that Mr. Ferrall 
had procured the health of his son at the hands of 
another witch, who had taken off the charm and 
effected a perfect cure. Margaret had a very narrow 
escape for her life. The whole of the jury, save one 
man, were against her, but she had in her favour the 
fact that the vicar was very unpopular, and, justly or 
unjustly, lay under some odious charges ; so, what 
with the sane juryman's exertions in her favour, and 
Mr. Ferrall's small hold on the interest and affec- 
tions of his parishioners, she was brought in Not 
Guilty, and the hangman's cord fell slack from his 
greedy grasp. 

It must have been somewhere about this time that 
the execution mentioned by Dr. More in his * Antidote 
to Atheism ' took place, when a mother and daughter 
were hanged at Cambridge for witchcraft and service to 



204 THE WITCHES OF ENGLAND. 

the Devil. When the mother was called on to renounce 
and forsake her old master, she refused to do so, saying 
■that he had been faithful to her for fourscore years, and 
she would not be faithless now to him. And in that o))- 
stinacy she died, with a courage and constancy worthy 
a better cause. The daughter was of a contrary mind. 
She avowed her misdeeds, and asked for pardon and 
grace, was penitent, and faithful, and earnest in prayer. 
All of which the Devil took, as may be imagined, very 
heinously ; and showed his displeasure by sending, in 
the midst of a dead calm, so sudden and violent a blast of 
wind, that the mother's body was driven sharply against 
the ladder, and was like to have overturned it, while the 
gallows shook with such force that the men standing 
round were fain to hold the posts, for fear of all being 
flung to the ground. It was somewhat before this, that 
at Town Mailing, in Kent, one of Queen Mary's Justices, 
" on the complaint of many wise men, and a few foolish 
boyes, laid an archer by the heels because he shot so 
near the white at huts. For he was informed and per- 
swaded that the poor man played with a fly, otherwise 
called a devill or familiar. And because he was certified 
that the archer aforesaid shot better than the common 
shooting, which he before had heard of or seen, he con- 
ceived it could not be in God's name, but by inchant- 
ment, whereby the archer (as he supposed, by abusing 
the Queen's liege people) gained some one day two or 
three shillings, to the detriment of the commonwealth, 
and to his owne inriching. And therefore the archer 
was severely punished, to the great encouragement of 
archers, and to the wise example of justice, but specially 
to the overthrow of witchcraft." Which quaint little 
anecdote of Scot's is worth a whole handful of jewels 
more richly set. 



1 



THE WITCHES OF S. OSEES. 205 

We are coming now to one of the most curious of the 
older trials, that of — 



THE WITCHES OF S. OSEES, 

held before Brian Darcey. It is contained in a rare 
and beautiful little black-letter book,* and is spoken of 
by Scot in his ' Discovery ' without much sparing of 
ridicule. It opens thus : "If there hath bin at anytime 
(Right Honorable) any meanes used to appease the 
wrath of "God, to obtaine his blessing, to terrifie secreete 
offenders by open transgressors punishments, to with- 
draw honest natures from the corruption of euill com- 
pany, to diminish the great multitude of wicked 
people, to increase the small number of vu'tuous per- 
sons, and to'reforme aU the detestable abuses which the 
peruerse witte and will of man doth dayly devise, this 
doubtlesse is no lesse necessarye than the best, that 
Sorcerers, Wizzardes, or rather Dizzardes, Witches, Wise 
women (for so they will be named), are rygorously punished. 
Rygorously ? sayd I ; why it is too milde and gentle 
a tearme for such a mercilesse generation : I should 
rather have sayd most cruelly execueted ; for that no 
punishment can be thought vpon, be it in neuer so 
high a degree of torment, which may be deemed suffi- 
cient for such a deuilishe and damnable practise." 

* ' A true and iust Eecorde of the Information, Examination, and 
Confession of aU the Witches, taken at S. Osees in the conntie of 
Essex ; whereof some were executed, and other some entreated accord- 
ing to the determination of lawe. Wherein all men may see what a 
pestilent people Witches are, and how vnworthy to lyve in a Christian 
Commonwealth. Written orderly, as the cases were tryed by euidence 
by W. W. Imprinted in London at the three Cranes, in the Vinetree, 
by Thomas Dawson. 1582.' 



206 THE WITCHES OF ENGLAND. 

These were the sentiments of W. W., as propounded 
to his patron " the right honourable and his singular 
good lorde, the Lord Darcey," to whom he inscribes his 
little book. For Brian Darcy, evidently a relation, had 
lately put in practice the views and opinions of a worthy 
citizen and zealous Christian touching witches, at the 
great holocaust offered up at " S. Osees " (St. Osyth), 
in the 23rd year of Queen Elizabeth's reign (1582) : 
and witch hatred therefore ran in the blood. 

The first complainant in this process was Grace Thur- 
lowe, wife of John Thurlowe, who came to make her 
moan about the evil practices of her neighbour, Ursley 
Kempe, alias Grey. About twelve months since, said 
Grace, her son Davy was strangely taken and greatly 
tormented. Ursley came, like the rest of the neighbours, 
to see him ; but, unlike the rest, she thrice took the child 
by the hand, saying each time, " A good childe, howe are 
thou loden :" going out of the house and returning between 
each phrase, which was evidently a charm, and no holy 
way of pitying a sick child. After this she said to Grace, 
** I warrant thee, I, thy childe shall doe well enough ;" 
and sure it was so, for that night the child slept well, 
and after another such cantrip visit from Ursula, mended 
entirely. This was not much to complain to the magis- 
trates about, but Grace had another and more grievous 
count. After this evident cure of her son she was 
delivered of a woman child, and, ungratefully enough, 
asked not Ursley to be her nurse ; whereat sprang up a 
quarrel, and the child in consequence fell out of the 
cradle and brake its neck ; not because it was clumsily 
laid, or carelessly rocked, but because Ursley was a 
vntch and had a grievance against Grace. And to this 
mischance, when she heard of it, all that the old dame 
said, was, " It maketh no matter ; for she might have 



THE WITCHES OF S. OSEES. 207 

suffered me to have the keeping and nursing of it.'* 
Then a trouble and a " frateh " ensued, and Ursley 
threatened Grace \vith lameness, whereat Grace an- 
swered, " Take heed, Ursley, tliou hast a naughtie 
name ;" but in spite of her warning the old witch did her 
work, so that Grace w^as taken with such lameness that 
she had to go upon her hands and knees. And thus 
it continued ; whenever she began to amend her child 
fell ill, and when her child was well she was cast down 
lame and helpless. 

Then Aunis Letherdall had her word. Annis and 
Ursley had a little matter of commerce between them, 
but Annis failed the suspected woman, " knowing her 
to be a naughtie beast." So Ursley in revenge bewitched 
Annis' s child, and that so severely that Mother Eat- 
cliffe, a skilful woman, doubted if she could do it any 
good; yet for all that she ministered unto it kindly. 
And, as a proof that it was Ursley, and only Ursley, wlio 
had so harmed the babe, and that its sad state came in 
no wise from bad food, bad nursing, and filthy habits, the 
little creature of only one year old, when it was carried 
past her house, cried " wo, wo," and pointed with its 
finger windowwards. What evidence could be stronger ? 
So then, to cliach the matter and strike fairly home, 
the magistrate examined Thomas Kabbet, Ursley 's " base 
son," a child of barely eight years of age, and got his 
version of the mother's life. The Kttle fellow's tes- 
timony went chiefly on the imps at home. His mother 
had four, he said — Tyffin, like a white lamb ; Titty, a 
little grey cat ; Pygine, a black toad ; and Jacke, a black 
cat; and she fed them, at times with wholesome milk 
and bread, and at times they sucked blood from her 
body. He further said that his mother had bewitched 
Johnson and his wife to death, and that she had given 



208 THE WITCHES OF ENGLAND. 

her imps to Godmother Newman, who put them into an 
earthen pot which she hid under her apron, and so 
carried them away. One Laurence then said that she 
had bewitched his wife, so that when " she lay a drawing 
home, and continued so a day and a night, all the partes 
of her body were colde like a dead creatures, and yet at 
her mouth did appeare her breath to goe and come." 
Thus she lingered, said her husband, until Ursley came 
in unbidden, turned down the bed-clothes, and took her 
by the arm, when immediately she gasped and died. 
Ursley at first would confess nothing beyond having had, 
ten or eleven years ago, a lameness in her bones, for 
the cure of which she went to Cook's wife of Wesley, 
who told her that she was bewitched, and taught her a 
charm by which she might unwitch herself and cure her 
bones ; which charm quite answered its purpose, and had 
never failed her with her neighbours ; all else she denied. 
Bat upon Brian Darcy * " promising to the saide 
Ursley that if she would deale plainely and confesse the 
truth that she should have fauour, so by giving her faire 
speeche she confessed as followeth." " Bursting out 
with weeping " and falling on her knees, she said, yes, 
she had the four imps her son had told of, and that two 
of them. Titty and Jack, were " hees," whose office 
was to punish and kill unto death ; and two. Tiffin and 
Piggin, were *' shees," who punished with lameness 
and bodily harm only, and destroyed goods and cattle. 
And she confessed that she had killed all the folk 
charged against her; her brother-in-law's wife, and 
Grace Thurlowe's cradled cliild, making it to fall out of 
its cradle and break its neck solely by her enchant- 
ments ; and that she had bewitched that little babe of 

* This was his maimer of dealing with the accused, and its falsehood, 
iniquity, and injustice need no conunent. 



THE WITCHES OF S. OSEES. 209 

Annis Letlierdall's, and Laurence's wife, and, in fact, that 
she had done all the mischief with which she w^as charged. 
Then, not liking to be alone, she said that Mother 
Bennet had two imps; the one a black dog, called 
Suckin, the other red like a lion, Lyerd: and that 
Hunt's wife had a spirit too, for one eyening she peeped 
in at her window when she was from home, and saw it 
look out from a potcharde from under a bundle of 
cloth, and that it had a brown nose like a ferret. And 
she told other lies of her neighbours, saying that her 
spirit Tiffin informed her of all these things ; and 
Brian Darcy sat there, gloating over these maniacal 
revelations. But in spite of his soft words and fau' 
promises, Ursley Kempe was condemned, and executed 
when her turn came. 

Joan Pechey, widow, was then brought forward ; and 
Ales Hunt, herself an accused witch, deposed against her 
that she was angry because, at a distribution of bread 
made by the said Brian Darcy, she had gotten a loaf 
which was too hard baked for her; whereat in a pet 
she said it might have been given to some one younger, 
and not to her, with no teeth to eat through the crust. 
And then Ales watched her home, and saw her go in 
alone to her own house where no human soul was; 
but there she heard her say, as to some one, " Yea, are 
you so sawsie ; are yee so bolde ; you were not best to 
bee so bolde with mee : For if you will not bee ruled, you 
shall have Symonds sawse ; yea, saide the saide Joan, 
I perceive if I doe give you an inch you will take an 
ell." All of which talk Ales Hunt found was to no 
Christian creature, but to her foul and wicked imps. 
The which testimony her sister, Margerie Sammon, con- 
firmed, saying that old Joan was as clever as their own 
mother (a noted witch, one Mother Barnes), or any one 

P 



210 THE WITCHES OF ENGLANI). 

else in S. Osees skilled in sorcery and magic. Another 
examinate then came forward with a stoiy of a be- 
witched cow unbewitched by a fire lighted around it : 
which, however, does not apparently touch any of the 
accused. And then the accuser, Ales Hunt, was made 
to take the place of the accused, and listen to the 
catalogue of her own sins. The chief witness against 
her was her little daughter-in-law (step-child ?) Febey, of 
the age of eight or thereabouts, who deposed to her 
having two little things like horses, the one white the 
other black, which she kept by her bedside in a little 
low earthern pot with wool, colour white and black, 
and which she fed with milk out of a black " trening " 
dish. When the Commissioners went to search the 
place they found indeed the board which Phoebe said 
was used to cover them, and she pointed out the trening 
dish whence they were fed ; but the little things like 
horses were gone ; when Phoebe said they had been 
sent to Hayward of Frowicke. After a time Alice 
Hunt was brought to confess not only to two, but four, 
imps ; two like colts, black and white, called Jack and 
Eobbin ; and two like toads, Tom and Kobbyn. Mother 
Barnes, her mother, gave them to her, she said, 
when she died; and ^he gave her sister, Margerie 
Sammon, two also. When Margerie was confronted 
with Alice and heard what she had deposed, she got 
very angry and denied the w^hole tale, saying : "I 
defie thee, though thou art my sister," saying that she 
had never any imps given to her on her mother's 
death-bed, or at any other time. But Alice took her 
aside and whispered something in her ear ; after which 
Margerie, " with great submission " and many tears, 
confessed that she had in truth these two imps, given 
to her by her mother as her sister had said, and that 



THE WITCHES OF S. OSEES. 211 

she had carried them away that same evenrng in a 
wicker basket filled with black and white wool. Her 
mother had said that if she did not Kke to keep them 
old Joan Pechey would be glad of them ; but she did 
not part with them just then ; and that she was to feed 
them on bread and milk, othermse they would suck her 
blood. Their names were Tom and Bobbin, and last 
evening she took them away — being perhaps afraid to 
keep them longer, now that the scent was warm — 
and went into Read's gTOund, where she bade them 
" go." Immediately they skipped out of the wicker 
basket toward a barred gate going into Howe Lane, 
to Mother Peachey's house, whereat she, Margerie, said^ 
" All evill goe with you, and the Lorde in heaven 
blesse mee from yee." 

All of which Mother Peachy, who seems to have been 
an upright, high-spirited old dame, stoutly denied. 
She was threescore year and upwards, she said, and 
had lived forty years in S. Osees in honour and good 
repute. She knew Mother Barnes, yet knew her for no 
witch, nor ever heard her to be so accompted, or to have 
skill in any witchery ; uor was she at her death-bed ; 
nor knew she of her imps. For her own part she 
denied that she had any ^i puppettes, spyrites, or 
maumettes ;" or had had any spnits conveyed to her by 
Margery Sammon, or since Mother Barnes's death. She 
denied all that Ales Hunt had said, as, " Yea, art thou 
so bolde," &c., she denied that she had had any hand in 
Johnson's death, as she had been accused of, but when 
he died said only he was a very honest man : she also 
denied some very shocking passages with her son, which 
he, however, had been brought to confess ; and when 
questioned more closely concerning her imps, said that 
she had only a kitten and a dog at home. AYhen 



212 THE WITCHES OF ENGLAND. 

asked of what colour were tliey? slie answered tartly, 
" Ye may goe and see." 

Ales Newman was also condemned and executed ; 
being obstinate to tlie last ; denying the four pounts with 
which she was charged, viz. her imps, the slaughter of 
her o^^Ti husband, of John Johnson, and of his wife. But 
William Hoke deposed that on his death-bed her hus- 
band had been perpetually crying out against her, 
saying, " Dost thou not see — dost thou not see ?" mean- 
ing the imp with which she tormented him, and which 
he strove vainly to beat away. Seeing her obstinacy, 
Brian Darcy told her that he would sever her and her 
spirits asunder; to which she answered quickly, 
" Nay," sayth shee, " that shal ye not, for I will carry 
them with mee." Then seeing that they took note of 
her words, she added, " if I have any." The admission 
was enough, and she was hanged. 

Elizabeth Bennet denied that she had had any hand 
in the bewitching to deatli Johnson or his wife, saying 
that the aforesaid Ales had done it all. But William 
Bonner had his stone ready for her on the other side, 
accusing her of bewitching his wife, for " shee, being 
sickely and sore troubled, the said Elizabeth vsed 
speeches unto her, saying, a goode woman liowe art 
thou loden, and then clasped her in her armes and 
kissed her. Wherevpon presently after her vpper 
Lippe swelled and was very bigge, and her eyes much 
sunked into her head, and shee hath lain sithence in a 
very strange case." Yet these two women were familiar 
friends, and " did accompanie much together ;" which 
shows that friendship was as dangerous as enmity in 
those mad times when the swelling of a lip, or the 
familiarity of a house pet, could bring the best of a dis- 
trict to the gallows. And then Ursley Kemp's testimony 



THE WITCHES OF S. OSEES. 213 

was remembered against Elizabeth, and the mysteries of 
Suckin and Liard sought to be fathomed. Elizabeth at 
the first Nvas obdurate and would confess to nothing 
beyond that she had certainly a pot, but no wool therein, 
and no imps to lay on it ; but at last she too was per- 
suaded by Brian Darcy's fine false words ; so falling on 
her knees, " distilling tears," she made her public moan. 
William Byet and she dwelt as neighbours together, 
she said, L'^-ing as neighbom'S should, well and easily; 
but latterly they had fallen out, because William called 
her " old Trot" and " old witch," and "did ban and 
curse her and her cattle." So she replied witli calling 
him " knave," saying, " Wind it vp Byet, for it will 
Hght vpon yom-self." And Byet's beast died forthwith. 
Then Byet's wife beat her swine with great " gybels," 
and made them sick; and once she ran a pitchfork 
through the side of one so that it was dead, and when 
the butcher who bought it came to dress and cut it 
up, it proved " a messel," so she had no money for it, 
for the butcher would not keep it and she was forced to 
take it back again. So far was only the ordinary quar- 
relling of ill-tempered country folk, and nothing very 
damaging to confess to; but now Brian Darcy's fair 
words drew from her all about her imp Suckin, a he 
and like a black dog, and Lierd, a she and like a hare 
or a lion, and red. Suckin had first come to her a long 
time ago, as she was retm-ning home from the mill; 
he held her by the coats, she being amazed, but 
vanished when she prayed. Again, when nigh hand 
at home, he tugged at her coats as before, yet vanished 
when she prayed. The next day he came with Lierd, 
and asked " why she was so snapj)ish yesterday ?" and 
thus they were for ever troubling and visiting her, till 
at last she yielded to their solicitations, and set them to 



214 THE WITCHES OF ENGLAND; 

tlie work she was accused of. This was the second 
instance in which Brian Darcy found that old Ursley 
and her imp Tiffin had spoken the truth. 

Ales Manfielde bewitched John Sayer's cart, keeping 
it standing stock still for above an hour, because she 
was offended that he would not let his thatcher cover 
in an oven for her ; and she lamed all Joan Chester's 
cattle, because Joan refused her some curds. So 
Ales ManjSelde was condemned and executed ; but not 
before she made her confession. She said that Margaret 
G-reuell (Greville), twelve years since, gave her four 
imps — Kobin, Jack, William, and Puppet or Mamet; 
they were like black cats, two shes and two hes, and 
were put into a box with some wool, and placed on a 
shelf by her bed. But Margaret denied it all, even 
when Ales was confronted with her ; denied too that 
queer tale of how she had bewitched John Carter's two 
brewings, so that half a seame had to go to the swill 
tub, all because he would not give her Godesgood. The 
brewing was only unbewitched when John's son, a tall 
lusty man of thirty-six, managed to stick his arrow in 
the brewing-vat. He had shot twice before, but missed, 
though he was a good shot and stood close to the vat — 
which was evident sorcery, somehow. Margaret denied 
also that she had bewitched Nicholas Strickland's wife so 
that she could make no butter, because Nicholas, who 
was a butcher, refused her a neck of mutton. But in 
spite of all her denials, she, the hale woman of fifty- 
four, was condemned to remain in prison, heaven knows 
for how long ; escaping the gallows by a greater miracle 
than any recorded of herself. 

Elizabeth Ewstace, a year younger than Margaret 
Greville, was told that she had bewitched Kobert 
Sanneuer, drawing his mouth all awry so that it could. 



i 



THE WITCHES OF S. OSEES. 215 

be got into its place again only witli a sharp blow ; 
and that she had killed his brother Crosse, thi-ee years 
ago, and bewitched his wife when with child and quite 
lusty and w^ell, so that she had a most strange sickness, 
and the child died soon after its birth ; that she made 
his cows give blood instead of milk ; and caused his 
hogs " to skip and leap about the yarde in a straunge 
sorte," because of the small bickerings to which S. Osees 
seemed specially subject. And she hm-t all Felice 
Okey's geese, and in particular her favourite goose, 
because she, Felice, had turned hers out of her yard ; 
all of -which Elizabeth Eustace denied to the face of 
Alice Mansfield and her other accusers. And as, on 
being searched, she was found to have no "' bigges" or 
witch marks, she was mercifully kept in prison — for the 
time. And Annis Glascocke, wife of John the sawyer, 
got into the trouble that had its end only in the hang- 
man's cord, because Mychel the shoemaker charged 
her with being a " naughtie woman," and because 
Ursley Kemp, informed by Tiffin, accused her of sundiy 
things about as true as all the rest of the story. Being 
found well supplied with witch marks, her denial was 
not allowed to go for much ; whereupon she abused 
Ursley, and said she had bewitched her and made her 
like to herself, she, Annis Glascocke, all the time igno- 
rant and innocent of her devilish arts. 

Then came the sad story of Henry Celles (Selles) and 
his wife Cysley. They were said to have killed Ei chard 
Eoss's horses, because Eichard had refused Cicely a 
bushel of malt which she had come for, bringing a poke 
to put it in. And to make the accusation stronger, little 
Henry their son, only nine years old, affirmed that at 
Candlemas last past about midnight there came to 
his brother John a spmt, which took him by the left 



216 THE WITCHES OF ENGLAND. 

leg and also by the little toe, and which was like his 
little sister, only that it was black. At which his brother 
cried out, " * Father, father, come helpe me ; there is 
a black thing that hath me by the legge as big as my 
sister ;' whereat his father saide to his mother, ' Why 

thou , cannot you keepe your imps from my 

children ? ' Whereat she presently called it away 
from her sonne, saying, ' Come away, come away.' At 
which speeche it did depart." He further said that his 
mother fed her imps daily with milk out of a black 
dish; that their names were Hercules, Sotheons, or 
Jacke which was black and a he, and Mercuric, white 
and a she ; that their eyes were like goose eyes ; and 
that they lay on some wool under a stack of broom 
at the old crab-tree root. And also that his mother 
had sent Hercules to Koss for revenge ; at which his 
father, when he heard of it, said, " She was a trim fool.'* 
As she very likely was; but for other things than 
sending imps to her neighbours. John, a little fellow 
of six and three-quarters, confirmed his brother's depo- 
sition, adding to it that " the imps had eyes as big as 
himself," and that his mother fed them with thin milk 
out of a spoon. He gave the names of other people 
whom his mother had bewitched, and he showed his 
scarred leg, and the nail of the little toe still imper- 
fect. And Joan Smith deposed that one day, as she 
was making ready to go to church, holding her babe 
in her arms, her mother, one Eedworth's wife, and 
Cicely were all at her door, ready to draw the latch as 
she came out, " whereat the grandmother to the childe 
tooke it by the hand, and shoke it, saying, ' A mother 
pugs, art thou coming to church ? ' and Eedworth's 
wife, looking on it, said, ' Here is a iolie and likely 
childe — God blesse it.' After wliich speeches, Selles his 



THE WITCHES OF S. OSEES. 217 

wife saide, * shee hath neuer the more children for that, 
but a little babe to play withall for a time.' And she 
saith within a short time after her said childe sick- 
ened and died. ' But,' she saith " — her womanly heart 
carrying it over her superstition — " ' that her con- 
science "will not serve her to charge the said Cysley 
or her husband to be the causers of any suche matter, 
but prayeth God to forgive if they haue dealt in any 
such sorte.' " Then Thomas Death accused Cicely Selles 
and one Barker's wife of bewitching George Battell's 
wife and his own daughter Mary, who got such good 
of the witches by a wise man's ministering that she saw 
her tormentor standing in bodily shape before her ; 
and Ales Baxter was pricked to the heart by a wliite 
imp like a cat which then vanished into the bushes 
close by, and so badly holden that she could neither 
go nor stand nor speak, and did not know her own 
master when he came by, but was forced to be taken 
home in a chair by two men. All of which Henry 
Selles and his wife Cicely denied ; specially the story 
of the imp and the children, who, if there were imps at 
all in the matter, were the only imps afloat. But 
denial did them no good, for Cicely had witch marks, 
so was condemned, and the two little lying varlets made 
themselves orphans and homeless. 

A very crowd of witnesses came to testify against 
Annis Herd. Of some she had bewitched the cream, 
of others the milk ; of some the cows or pigs or wives ; 
but all this was mere floating accusation until the 
Commissioners got hold of her little " base " daughter 
of seven, who gave them plenty of information. Asked 
if her mother had imps, she said " Yes ;" in one box 
she had six " auices," or blackbirds, and in another box 
six like cows as big as rats, with short horns, lying in 



218 THE WITCHES OF ENGLAND. 

the boxes on white or black wool. And she said that 
her mother gave her one of the cow imps, a black and 
white one, called Crowe ; and to her little brother one, 
red and white, called Donne ; and that she fed the 
avices or blackbirds with wheat and barley and oats 
and bread and cheese ; giving to the cows wheat straw, 
bean straw, oat straw, or hay, with water or beer 
to drink. When her brother sees these blackbird imps 
come a " tuitting and tetling" about him, added the 
little base daughter, he takes and puts them in the 
boxes. Some of them sucked on her mother's hands, 
and some on her brother's legs, and when they showed 
her the marks she pointed them out one by one, saying, 
" Here sucked aves and here blackbird." She was 
sharp enough though to shield herself, young as she 
was ; for when asked why one of her hands had the 
same kind of mark, she said it was burnt. Anis Herd 
was kept in prison, but not hanged just then, for she 
could not, luckily for her, be got to confess to anything 
very damaging. She said that she was certainly angry 
with the churl Cartwright for taking away a bough 
which she had laid over a flow in the highway, but she 
had not bewitched him or his ; and that she had, truly, 
kept Lane's wife's dish fourteen days or more, as Lane's 
wife had said, and that Lane's wife had sent for the 
twopence which she, Anis, owed her, and that she had 
grumbled with her — also with this neighbour and that 
neighbour, according to the habits of S. Osees — but hat 
she had bewitched none of them. And she denied the 
avices and the blackbirds and all and sundry of the 
stories of Crow or Dun; which, indeed, with some 
others spoken of by the children, seem to have been, 
if existing at all, toys or treasures kept hoarded from 
them, to which they added these magical and absurd 



THE WITCHES OF S. OSEES. 



219 



conditions as tlieir imaginations taught them or their 
examiners prompted. 

Joan Eobinson, another S. Osees witch, was to blame 
for various acts of sorcery and witchcraft — hurting one 
woman's brood goose, and another's litter of pigs, 
drowning cows, laming ambling mares, and the rest of 
the witch's plaj^ul practices ; all of which she, too, denied 
strenuously, but nevertheless formed one of the thirteen 
victims whom the offended justice of the times found 
necessary to condemn and execute. So this sad trial 
came to an end, and Brian Darcy covered his name with 
infamy so long as W. W. has a black letter copy extant. 

The following singular table is drawn up at the end 
of the book : — 



" The names of xiii Witclies and those that have been bewitched by 
them. 

" The Names of those persons that have beene bewitched and thereof 
haue dyed, and by whome, and of them that haue receyved bodyly 
harme, &c. As appeareth vpon sundry e Enformations, Examinations, 
and Confessions taken by the worshipfull Bryan Darcey, Esquire ; and 
by him certified at large vnto the Queene's Maiestie's Justices of Assise 
of the Countie of Essex, the xxix of Marche, 1582. 



S. Osythes. 



Confessed by 
L'rsley and 
Elizabeth. 



The Witches. ) Vg_pi.„i,gj (Kempes wife, 
1. Ursley Kempe,[ ^Tdeath Thorlowes Childe, 
alias Gray .] (and Strettons wife. 



and r M ( bewitched j Letherdalles childe, 
Kpmnp (to death (and Strettons wife. 



and 



UrskvH bewitched |?^"^""^^ Childe, | whereof they 



Kempe . . J 



3. Elizabeth 
Bennet 



Elizabeth 
Bennet 



\ Grace Thorlowe, / did languish. 

! William Byet, and Joan his 
wife, and iii of his beasts. 
The wife of William Willes, and 
William Wittiugalle. 

! William Bonners Wife, John 
Butler, Fortunes Childe ; 
whereof they did languish. 



220 



THE WITCHES OF ENGLAND. 



!ssed 1 
cattell. / 



Confessed 
the cattell. 



Little Clap- 1 
ton. j 



Thorpe. 

Confessed by] 
Ales Man- 
field. 



Thorpe. 



Ales Newman 

4. Ales Hunt 

5. Cysley Celles 
Cysley Celles , 



to death 



bewitched (John Johnson and his Wife, 
and her own Husband, as it is 
thought. 

( bewitched J Rebecca Durrant and vi beasts 
' \ to death \ of one Haywardes. 

bewitched 



( bev 
\ to 



. ,, >Thomas Deaths Childe. 



Cysley Celles) 
and i 

6. Ales Manfielde) 

7. Ales Manfielde) 

and Margaret) 
Greuell . .) 

Ales Manfielde I 
and Margaret^ 
Greuell . . j 



bewitched /^o^ses Mayde, Mary Death, 
\ whereof they did languish. 

bewitched Richard Rosses horse and beasts 
and caused their Inapes to burne a barne 
with much corne. 

Robert Chesson, 



bewitched 
to death 



and Greuell husband to Mar- 
garet. 

bewitched the widdow Chesson, and her 
husband, v beasts and one bullocke, and 
seuerall brewinges of beere, and batches 
of bread. 



Elizabeth 
Ewstace 



Little Okley. 9. Annys Herd ./ 



Ewstace , . / to death (and Thomas Crosse. 

bewitched Robert Stanneuet, vii milch 
beasts, w^ gaue blood in steede of milke, 
and seuerall of his Swine dyed. 

Richard Harrisons wife, and 
two wives of William Dow- 
singe, as it is supposed. 

bewitched Cartwright two beasts, made, 
sheepe, and lambes xx ; West swine, and 
pigs ; Diborne, a brewing of beere, and 
seuerall other losses of milke and creame. 



bewitched 
to death 



Annys Herd 



Walton, 



10. Joan Robinson< 



bewitched beasts, horses, swine, and pigs, 
of seuerall men. 



" The sayd Ursley Kemp had foure spyrites, viz., their names Tettey 
a hee like a gray Cat, Jack a hee like a black Cat, Pygin a she like a 
black Toad, and Tyffyn a she like a white Lambe. The hees were to 
plague to death, and the shees to punish with bodily harme, and to 
destroy cattell. 

" Tyffyn, Ursley's white Spirit, did tell her alwayes (when she asked) 
what the other witches had done : and by her the most part were 
appelled, which spirit telled her alwayes true. As is well approved by 
the other Witches confession. 



THE WITCHES OF S. OSEES. 221 

" The sayd Ales Newman had the sayd Ursley Kemps spirits to vse 
at her pleasure. Elizabeth Bennet had two spirits, viz., their names 
Suckjm, a hee like a blacke Dog : and Lyard, red lyke a Lyon or Hare. 

" Ales Hunt had two spirits lyke Colts, the one blacke, the other 
white. 

"11. Margery Sammon had two spirits lyke Toads, their 'Names Tom 
and Robyn, 

" Cysley Celles had two spirits by seuerall names, viz., Sotheons, 
Hercules, Jack, or Mercury. 

" Ales Manfield and Margaret Greuell had in common by agreement, 
iiii Spirits, viz., their names Eobin, Jack, Will, Puppet, alias Mamet, 
whereof two were hees, and two were shees, lyke vnto black Cats. 

" Elizabeth Ewstace had iii Impes or Spirits of colour white, grey, 
and black. 

" Annis Herd had vi Lnpes or Spirites, like anises and black byrdes, 
and vi other like Kine, of the bygnes of Rats, with short homes ; the 
Anises shee fed with wheat, barley, otes, and bread, the Kine with 
straw and hay. 

AnnJ^ Glas-"! 
cocke. I These have not confessed any thing touching 

12, Joan Pechey. j the hauing of spirits. 

13. Joan Robinson, j 

. . ^, , , ., 1 1 (Mychell Steuens Childe. 
Annis Glas-1 bewitched Irp/ , ni-i ■> ^ r, 

1 f J i.1, { i be base ChiJde at rag;es. 

cocke . .j to death Jttt.i,- n r«i,-ij 
•' (Wilham Pages Childe. 



Thus did W. W. and Bryan Darcey finish their 
respective works, in which, perhaps, this formal tabular 
statement, this pretence at scientific arrangement and 
accuracy, is the strangest and most revolting element.* 

* The names of the imps which haunted various persons was curious. 
A Dutch boy had Pretty Betty, Cuckow, Longtail ; and Bernard gives 
us his list : — " Mephistophiles, Lucifer, Little Lord, Fimodes, David, 
Jude, Little Robin, Smack, Litefoote, Nonesuch, Lunch, Makeshift, 
Swash, Pluck, Blue, Catch, White, Collins, Hardname, Tibb, Hiff, 
Ball, Puss, Rutterkin, Dickie, Prettie, Grissel, and Jacke ;" together 
with " Pippin, Philpot, Modu, Soforce, Hilco, Smolkin, Hillio, Hia- 
clito, Lustie, Huffe, Cap, Killico, Hob, Fratello, Fliberdigibbet, Hober- 
didance, Tocobatto, and Lustie Jollie Jenkin." We have seen some 
of these already, and those who read farther will find a few more, and 
some quite as quaint and odd not set down in this list. 



222 THE WITCHES OF ENGLAND. 

Another rare and curious * black-letter pamphlet 
gives a marvellous account of a woman's possession, as 
it happened in Somersetshire ; which perchance we of 
the light-minded and sceptical nineteenth century 
might interpret differently to what the believing six- 
teenth held likely. 



THE WOMAN AND THE BEAE. 

One Stephen Cooper, of Ditchet, a yeoman of honest 
reputation, good wealth, and well beloved by his neigh- 
bours, being sick and weak, sent his wife Margaret to a 
farm of his at Rockington, Gloucestershire, where she 
remained a few days — not finding all to her liking, she 
said. When she returned she found her husband some- 
what better, but she herself was strange and wild, 
using much idle talk to him concerning an old groat 
which her little son had found and which she wanted 
to see, and raving about the farm in Gloucestershire, 
as if she had been bewitched, and knew not what she 
said. Then she began to change in very face, and to 
look on her husband with " a sad and staring counte- 
nance ;" and, one night, things came to a climax, for 
she got very wild and bad, and shook so frightfully 
that they could scarce keep her down in the bed ; and 
then she began talking of a headless bear, which, she said, 
she had been into the town to beat away during the 

* ' A true and most dreadfull discourse of a Woman possessed with 
the Deuill ; who, in the likenesse of a headlesse Beare, fetched her 
cute of her Bedde, in the presence of seven persons, most straungely 
rouUed her thorow three Chambers, and downe a high paire of stairres 
on the fower and twentie of May last, 1584, At Ditchet, in Somerset- 
shire. A matter as miraculous as ever was seen in our time. Imprinted 
at London for Thomas Nelson.' 



THE WOMAN AND THE BEAR. 223 

time of her fit, and wliicli had followed her from Eock- 
ington : as the - sequel proved was true. Her friends 
and liusband exhorted her to prayer and patience, but 
she still continued marvellously holden, the Devil get- 
ting quite the better of her until Sunday night, when 
she seemed to come to her worst. Suddenly the candle, 
which they had not been noticing, went out, and she 
set up a lamentable cry ; they lighted another, but it 
burnt so dim it was almost useless, and the friends and 
neighbours themselves began to be disquieted. Wildly 
and hurriedly cried Margaret, " Look ! do you not see 
the Devil ? " herself all terrified and disturbed. They 
bade her be still and pray. Then said Margaret, 
" Well, if you see nothing now, you shall see something 
by and bye ;" and " forthwith they heard a noise in 
the streete, as it had been the coming of two or three 
carts, and presently they in the chamber cried out, 
* Lord helpe us, what manner of thing is this that 
commeth here !' " For up to the bedside where the 
woman lay with heaving breasts and dilated eyes, 
came a thing like a bear, only that it had no head and 
no tail ; a thing " half a yard in height and half a yard 
in length " (no bigger, Margaret ? not so big as a well- 
trussed man on all-fours?) which, when her husband 
saw, he took a joyn'd stool, and " stroke " at it, and 
the blow sounded as though it had fallen on a feather 
bed. But the creature took no notice of the man : it 
wanted only Margaret. Slowly it paddled round the bed, 
then smote her thrice on the feet, took her out of bed, 
and rolled her to and fro in the chamber, round about 
the floor and under the bed ; the husband and friends, 
sore amazed and affrighted, only calling on God to 
assist them, not daring to lift a hand for themselves or 
her. And all the while the candle grew dimmer and 



224 THE WITCHES OF ENGLAND. 

dimmer, so that they could scarce see each other : which 
was what Margaret and the headless bear, no doubt, 
desired. Then the creature took her in its arms, 
thrust her head between her legs so that he made her 
into a round ball, and " so rouUed her in a rounde 
compasse like an Hoope through three other Chambers, 
downe an highe paire of staires, in the Hall, where he 
kept her for the space of a quarter of an hour." The 
people above durst not come down, but remained above, 
weeping pitifully and praying with loud and fervent 
prayer. And there was such a terrible stench in the 
hall, and such fiery flames darting hither and thither, 
that they were fain to stop their noses with clothes and 
napkins, expecting every moment to find that hell was 
opening beneath their feet, and that they would be no 
longer able to keep out of harm's way and the Devil's. 
Then Margaret cried out, " He is gone. Now he is 
gone ! " and her husband joyfully bade her come up 
to him again; which she did, but so quickly that 
they greatly marvelled at it, and thought to be sure the 
Devil had helped her. Yet she proved to be none the 
worse for the encounter : which was singular, as times 
went. They then put her in bed, and four of them 
kept down the clothes, praying fervently. Suddenly 
the woman was got out of bed : she did not move 
herself by nerves, muscles, or will, of course ; but she 
was carried out by a supernatural power, and taken to 
the window at the head of the bed. But whether the 
devil or she opened the window, the pamphlet does not 
determine. Then her legs were thrust out of the 
window, and the people heard a thing knock at her 
feet as if it had been upon a tub ; and they saw a 
great fire, and they smelt a gTievous smell ; and then, 
by the help of their praye]-s, they pulled Margaret into 



THE WOMAN AND THE BEAR. 225 

the room again, and set her upon her feet. After a few 
moments she cried out, " Lord, methinks I see a 
little childe ! " Sut they paid no heed to her. Twice 
or thrice she said this, and ever more earnestly ; and 
at last they aU looked out at the window, for they 
thought to be sure she must have some meaning 
for her raving. And " loe, they espied a thing like 
unto a little child, with a bright shining countenaunce 
casting a greate light in the chamber." And then the 
candle, which had hitherto burnt blue and dim, gave 
out its natural light so that they could all see each 
other. - Whereupon they fell to joyful prayer, and gave 
thanks to God for the deliverance. And Margaret 
Cooper was laid in her bed again, calm, smiling, and 
collected, never more to be troubled by a Headless 
Bear which rolled her about like a ball, or by a bright 
shining child looking out from the chinks of a rude 
magic lantern. As for the bear, I confess I think he 
was nearer akin to man than devil ; that he was known 
about Kockington in Gloucestershire ; and that Mar- 
garet Cooper understood the conduct of the plot from 
first to last. But then this is the sceptical nineteenth 
century, wherein the wiles of human cunning are more 
believed in than the power of the devil, or the miracles 
of supernaturalism. Yet this was a case which, in 
spite of all its fraud and folly so patently displayed, 
was cited as one of the most notorious and striking 
instances of the power of Satan over the bodies as well 
as the souls of those who gave themselves up to the 
things of the world. 



226 THE WITCHES OF ENGLAND. 



THE WITCHES OF WARBOIS.* 

In 1589, Kobert Throckmorton, Esquire, lived at War- 
bois, in Huntingdonshire. He had five daughters, the 
eldest of whom, Miss Joan, was fifteen, while the rest 
came down in steps, two years or so between each, in 
the ordinary manner. On the tenth of November, 
Mistress Jane, being then near ten years of age, was 
suddenly seized with a kind of fit. She " screeked " 
loud and often, lay as if in a trance for half an hour or 
more, shook one leg or one arm and no other, "as if 
the Palsie had been in it," made her body so stiff and 
rigid that no man could bend her, and went through 
the usual forms of a young girl's hysteria. A neigh- 
bour, one Alice Samuel, who lived next door to the 
Throckmortons, went in to see the afflicted child ; for 
all the neighbours were flocking in to see her as a kind 
of curiosity ; and, stepping up into the chimney-side, 
sat hard down by her, she being held in another 
woman's arms by the fire. Suddenly the child 
cried out, " Did you ever see one more like a Witch 
than she is ?" pointing to Mother Samuel ; " take off 
her black-thrumb'd cap, for I cannot abide to look 
at her." 

Nothing was thought of her words at the time, the 
mother merely chiding her for her lightness of speech ; 
but " the old woman hearing her, sat still, without say- 
ing a word, yet looked very dismally, as those that saw 
her remembered very well." And as well she might, 
poor old soul ; for she must have known that Mrs. 

* ' A compleat History of Magick, Sorcery, and Witchcraft.' By 
Eichard Boulton. 1715. 



THE WITCHES OF WARBOIS. 227 

Jane's light speech would in all probability be heavy 
enough to bring her down to the grave. 

Doctoring did the child no good. Dr. Barrow of 
Cambridge, the most noted man of the district, gave 
the distemper no satisfactory name, and his remedies 
were powerless to remove it ; Mr. Butler, another 
skilful man, was equally at fault ; and when, about a 
month after Mrs. Jane had been attacked, two other 
daughters were driven to the like extremity, and 
" cry'd out upon Mother Samuel, * Take her away, look 
where she standeth there before us in a black thrumb'd 
Cap (which she commonly wore, though not then) ; it's 
she that hath bewitched us, and she will kill us if you 
don't take her away,'" the parents were moved to 
believe the whole thing supernatural, and that Mother 
Samuel had indeed bemtched them as they said. 
About a month after the affliction of these two, a 
younger child, not quite nine years old, was taken like 
the rest ; and soon after Mrs. Joan, of fifteen, went the 
same way — only more severely handled than them 
all. Mrs. Joan had a specialty in her fits. She was 
not only hysterical like her sisters, but she had a 
Spirit, and this Spirit sounded in her ears information 
of things to come : as, that the servants as well as the 
five children should be bewitched — which they were, 
but did not become so notorious as the little impostors 
of better blood ; all recovering so soon as they left the 
house for other situations, and notliing more being 
heard of them. Things went on then in this manner, 
the children being perpetually tormented with fits, and 
for ever crying out against old dame Samuel, when, in 
February of the next year (1590), it was resolved to 
bring her to the house that the children might " scratch " 
her, and so relieve themselves somewhat. Whereupon 



228 THE WITCHES OF ENGLAND. 

she, her young daughter Agnes, and one Cicely Burder — 
both of whom were accused of the same malpractices as 
herself — were haled to Mr. Throckmorton's, there to 
undergo their preliminary ordeal. Every care was 
taken to prevent the mother from holding any com- 
munication with her daughter Agnes ; but at the entry 
she managed to lean over and whisper to her. Mr. 
Pickering, the children's uncle, who had undertaken to 
conduct this Scratching, was ready to swear that she 
said, " I charge thee do not confess anything ;" but 
Mother Samuel swore, in her turn, that she had only 
charged her to hasten home to get her father his 
dinner ; for that same father was a terrible old Turk, 
and not likely to wait patiently for his dinner or 
aught else. 

When the women went into the house the children 
were standing by the fire, perfectly well ; but the instant 
they saw Mother Samuel, they fell down in their fits, 
leaping and springing about like fishes newly taken out 
of the water, drawing their heads and heels backwards, 
and throwing out their arms with great groans that 
were terrible and troublesome to those that beheld 
them. They screamed and struggled to get at the old 
woman, scratching at the bed-clothes, or the maids' 
aprons, or anything they could touch, crying out, " ! 
that I had her ! O ! that I had her !" And when Mr. 
Pickering forced Mother Samuel's hand within theirs, 
they scratched at it with so much vehemence that one of 
them splintered her nails "with her eager desire of 
revenge ;" doing the same by Cicely Burder, who thus, 
we are not told how or why, found herself in a danger- 
ous and equivocal position, but seems to have got well 
out of it in time. Or perhaps she died between whiles, 
happily for herself. 



THE WITCHES OF WARBOIS. 229 

For the next few months it was Mrs. Elizabeth 
Thi-ockmorton who kept up the ball. Mr. Pickering 
took her away with him to his own house, where she 
fooled them all to the top of their bent, crying out 
to Mother Samuel to take away her mouse, for she 
would have none of it, and exclaiming in piteous tones 
that Mother Samuel was trying to force a cat, or a frog, 
or sometimes a toad, into her mouth ; hopping about on 
one leg, pretending to be utterly incapable of putting 
the other to the gTOund ; sometimes going for two steps 
at a time, when " she would halt and give a beck with 
her head as low as her knees ;" asking if no one heard 
the spirit within her lapping the milk she had just 
taken ; playing at cards with her eyes shut, or seem- 
ingly so ; and falling into drowsy fits which took her 
even in the midst of meals, or any while else specially 
untimely. Her bewitchment took a certain contro- 
versial turn too, and witnessed for the Pope and the 
Devil ; for " on the Eleventh, one asked her if she 
loved the Word of God; whereupon she was much 
troubled and tormented. When they asked. Love you 
Witchcraft ? she was content. Love you the Bible ? it 
shaked her. Love you Papistry ? the Devil within her 
was quiet. Love you Prayer ? it raged. Love you the 
Mass ? it was still. Love you the Gospel ? it heaved 
up her BeUy ; so that every good thing it disliked ; but 
whatever concerned Popish Idolatry it was pleased 
with." Mr. Pickering kept this sectarian young lady 
from March to September, and then it pleased Mistress 
Elizabeth to require change of air and scene, and she 
demanded to be taken back to her father's house at 
Warbois. There she played off her tricks with new 
vigour, when Lady Cromwell, wife of Sir Henry Crom- 
well, Knt., hearing of these heavy afflictions came to 



230 THE WITCHES OF ENGLAND. 

visit the children and comfort the parents. The children 
of course went off into their customary state ; it was 
not their game to disappoint my Lady ; " and were so 
grievously Tormented that it moved the good Lady's 
Heart with Pity, so that she could not forbear Tears, 
and caused old Mother Samuel to be sent for, who 
durst not deny to come, because her Husband was 
Tenant to Sir Henry Cromwell." As soon as she came 
in, the children were so much worse that the Lady, 
transported beyond herself, and exceedingly angry 
that Mother Samuel would not confess to her crime, 
seized hold of her as she was struggling to get free of 
their hands and slip out of the room, pulled off her 
kircher, and cut off a lock of her hair, which she gave 
privately to Mrs. Throckmorton together with the old 
dame's hairlace; bidding her burn them. The old 
woman turning against the Lady, said, half sorrowfully, 
*' Madam, why do you use me thus ? I never did you 
any harm as yet :" words to be remembered and 
treasured up against her, when the hour came. That 
very night Lady Cromwell had bad dreams concerning 
Mother Samuel and her cat, which she said came to 
strip all the flesh from her — and awakened, crying 
mightily and much distressed. From that time she 
had fits, and continued very hardly holden till her 
dying day, which was one year and a quarter after 
the visit to Warbois. So Mother Samuel's words 
were held to have been mtch's threats, and the 
whole country was convinced that Lady Cromwell 
had died by her magic arts, and bewitched. As she 
was, poor lady, with nervous fear and superstition and 
ignorance. 

The next year, in the winter of 1591, Mr. Henry 
Pickering, a young student at Cambridge, tried to make 



THE WITCHES OF WARBOIS. 231 

Dame Samuel confess, but she would not suffer him or 
his companions to speak, and when they desired her to 
speak softlier, answered : " She was born in a Mill, 
begot in a Kiln, and must have her Will, and could 
speak no softlier." Then Mr. Henry began to question 
her on her faith, but got only tart answers ; so, losing 
patience, he said that if she did not repent and confess 
to having worked that wickedness on the children, he 
hoped one day to see her bm-n at the stake, and that he 
would bring wood and faggots and the childi-en should 
blow the coals. To which old Dame Samuel repKed 
that she " would rather see him doused over head in 
the pond ;" and so went away home, to be beaten for 
gossiping and staying late, by that terrible old Turk of 
hers. 

And now the children would be well only when the 
dame was with them ; so the parents sought to engage 
her to live with them, but the old Turk would not give 
his consent, and beat her severely with a cudgel on the 
sKghtest pretext. The whole thing angered him, and 
his dame could not do right let her do what she would. 
However, he was prevailed on to spare her for eight or 
nine days, during which time the lying little gii'ls 
professed themselves cured of all their haunting spirits 
— dun chickens, naked babes, and the like ; to the old 
woman's extreme consternation and passionate assurances 
of innocence. Then the children turned against Agnes 
Samuel, the daughter, declaring that she had bewitched 
them equally with the mother : whereupon the father, 
]\Ir. Throckmorton, went to bring her to the house ; 
when she hid herself in an attic or loft, barricading 
herself in by sacks of wool piled up on the trap- 
door. She was forced to come down at last, and her 
fear was made the chief evidence ag-ainst her. The 



232 THE WITCHES OF ENGLAND. 

bour had come round for her on Time's cruel dial, and 
she could not escape the inevitable decree that had 
gone forth. All this while the old mother was forcibly 
detained at Mr. Throckmorton's house; the children 
pretending that they could be well only in her presence, 
and absolutely refusing to let her go, though she was 
sick and fearful and weary, and cried to get home 
again to her daughter and husband. That uncompro- 
mising oaken cudgel of his was less terrible than the 
awful suspicion under which she was living here ; and the 
harassing uncertainty of her life — never knowing what 
new lie the children might frame against her, nor how 
much nearer they might bring her to the gallows by 
some wicked fancy or delusion — was infinitely worse than 
all the oaths and ill-usage of home, of which she knew 
at least the extent and end. She seems to have been 
a gentle-spirited old creature in spite of her crusty 
tongue ; and at the beck of every one who chose to 
knock her about and require from her service and sub- 
mission. When Mr. Throckmorton had teased and 
threatened and exhorted her, till she was completely 
^' dazed and mazed " with all she heard — and when the 
children had acted their fits with such power and accu- 
racy that they simulated nature to the life, and had 
impressed even her with all the wicked things which 
their Spirits told them of her and of her daughter — her 
mind, enfeebled by suffering and terror, gave way, and 
she was deluded into a confession of sin and penitence ; 
after which she obtained leave to go home. As her 
husband gave her but a harsh welcome, angry with 
her for her weakness in confessing, she recanted as 
of course ; when Mr. Throckmorton, getting hold 
of her by an open window beneath which his friends 
were stationed, bullied and deluded her once more 



THE WITCHES OF WAKBOIS. 233 

into making a confession which they might hear ; and 
on the strength of which he carried off both dame 
and daughter, to be examined by the Bishop of 
Lincoln. 

The Bishop found her easy. Yes, she had an imp ; a 
dun chicken which sucked on her chin, and which she 
had sent to torment the Throckmorton girls. The dun 
chicken and the rest of the spirits were now at the 
bottom of her stomach, and made her so full and heavy 
that she could not lace her coat, nor was the horse on 
which she rode able to carry her all the way : she had 
three spirits, all like dun chickens — Pluck, Catch, and 
White, which had been given her by an "upright man," 
extremely hard, of the name of Langland, of no par- 
ticular dwelling and now gone beyond seas ; and she 
had sent all three to the children and had plagued 
them sorely. This she said at various times, at each 
clause conjuring the devil and her spirits to inform 
her of the facts required by the Eight Keverend Father 
in God. After her examination she and her daughter 
were committed to gaol ; but Mr. Throckmorton got 
Agnes out on bail that he might take her home to the 
children, and see what they would say of her. This 
seemed to him the best way to complete the evidences 
of guiltiness against her, which at present were very 
slight and worthless. So the net closed tighter and 
tighter round this hapless family, and soon the deep 
black waves, rolling onward, dashed over their devoted 
heads. 

When they heard that Agnes was brought back to 
Warbois, the children fell into their fits again, each 
saying, "I am glad, I am glad; none so glad as I." 
They knew the cruel sport preparing for them, and were 
in no hurry to abandon the pleasant excitement of their 



234 THE WITCHES OF ENGLAND. 

Possession, during which they were made so many centres 
of public interest, petted and commiserated and looked 
at and talked about and made of more consequence than 
the finest lady in the land. When the game was over 
they must sink down into the humdrum lives of good 
little girls in a country town, of no possible interest to 
living being outside their own house door. Surely an 
event to be deferred to the latest moment possible ! 
For the first three or fom- days after Agnes' arrival 
they condescended to be well, but, being by that time 
tired of their new companion, they fell back into their 
former state, and cried out against her more bitterly 
than they had ever done against her mother. She was 
more helpless, too, than the mother, and more entirely 
in then- power ; so that the sport was greater, and the 
fear of opposition or detection less. Specially did Mis- 
tress Joan, the eldest girl, torment her ; who, being at 
this time seventeen, had other ideas of spirits than dun 
chickens, mice, or frogs, which were all very well in 
the days of her infancy but quite uninteresting to her 
now. The manner in which she introduced her Spirits 
was singular. One day, just after her nose had bled, 
and she had said " it would be a good thing to throw 
her handkerchief into the fire, and burn the young 
witch," she suddenly looked about her smiling, and 
said, "What is this in God's Name that comes tum- 
bling to me ? It tumbles like a Foot-bal, it looks like 
a puppit-player, and appears much like its Dame's old 
thrumb Cap. * What is your Name, I pray you ? said 
she. The Thing answered, his Name was Blew. To 
which she answered, ' ]\Ir. Blew you are welcome, I 
never saw you before ; I thought my Nose bled not for 
nothing, what News have you brought ? What,' says 
she, ' dost thou say I shall be worse handled than ever 



THE WITCHES OF WARBOIS. 235 

I was? Ha! what dost thou say? that I shall now 
have my Fits, when I shall both hear and see and know 
every Body ? that's a new Trick indeed. I think never 
any of my Sisters were so used, but I care not for you : 
do your worst, and when you have done, you will make 
an end.' " Then she cried out that Agnes Samuel had 
too much liberty, and must be more strictly looked to ; 
for that Mr. Blew had told her she should have no peace 
till she and the old dame were hanged. 

Mrs. Joan had opened a most proMc and amusing 
vein. Her imagination stopped at nothing, and she 
showed herself no mean hand at romance. She was 
very consecutive too, and kept up the likeness well. 
In the evening Mr. Blew appeared again, chiefly for the 
purpose of telling her that young Nan Samuel was his 
Dame, and to ask when the Spuit Smack, of whom he 
was jealous, had been with her. Mrs. Joan said she 
knew of no Smack. "You do," says the Thing, " and 
it is he that tells you all these things, but I will curse 
him for it." " Do your worst to me or him, I care not 
for you," says she. " Farewel," says the Thing. '' Do 
you bid me farewel ?" says she ; " farewel, and be 
hanged ; and come again when you are sent for." So 
then she came out of her fit. The next day a strange 
gentleman coming, ]\Irs. Elizabeth passed off* into one of 
her wild states, and Mr. Throckmorton, " to show the 
gentleman a wonder," sent for young Agnes, and made 
her say after him, " I charge thee, thou Devil, as I love 
thee, and have Authority over thee, and am a Witch, 
and guilty of this matter, that thou suffer this Child to 
be well at this present." Upon which Mrs. Elizabeth 
wiped her eyes, and was perfectly well ; and the 
wretched young girl was by so many steps nearer to 
her doom. The next day was a grand field-day for 



236 THE WITCHES OF ENGLAND. 

Mrs. Joan. Her spirits were in admirable disorder, 
Mr. Smack came from fighting with Pluck about her, 
for they were both in love with her, and had fought 
with great cowl staves last night in old dame's back 
yard, and Smack had broken Pluck's head, for which 
Mrs. Joan was not at all thankful, but, when he looked 
for a little loving word of gratitude, answered, scorn- 
fully, that she wished Pluck had broke his neck also, 
and so bid him go and be hanged for she would have 
nought to do with him. Presently in came Mr. Pluck, 
hanging down his broken head and looking very sheep- 
ish, but jealous and angry with Smack who seemed to 
have the best chance of them all with the young lady. 
Another day it was Catch who came in limping, with a 
broken leg got from the redoubtable Smack ; but when 
Mrs. Joan tried to break his other leg with a stick she 
had in her hand — for she was a very scornful young 
lady to them — she could not ; for ever as she struck at 
him he leaped over the stick, "just like a Jack-an- 
apes," as she said. Mr. Blew's turn came next. He 
appeared before her at supper with his arm in a sling : 
Smack had broken it. So Smack broke Pluck's head. 
Catch's leg, and Blew's arm, and then came himself to 
tell her that he would beat them all again, with the 
help of his cousin another Smack, and one Hardname, 
whose " Name standeth upon eight Letters, and every 
Letter standeth for a Word, but what his Name is 
otherwise we know not." Then Smack and she con- 
versed about the propriety of " scratching " Agnes 
Samuel ; and it was agreed between them that she 
should not scratch her then, because her face would be 
healed by the Assizes, but just before that time when 
all the world might see the marks. 

And now began a scene of painful brutality. When- 



THE WITCHES OF WAKBOIS. 237 

ever the children fell into their fits, they would only- 
consent to be got out of them by Agnes' repeating a 
form of conjuration, in wliich she acknowledged her- 
self to be a witch and guilty of their disease, command- 
ing the devil, whom she had sent into them, to leave 
them. Then they came round, and were well until 
strangers called, when they invariably went off into their 
fits — which we can quite well understand — or until they 
got tired of the monotony of health. The most terrible 
threats were held out against Nan Samuel ; and each 
child talked to its particular spirit with passion and 
fury of scratching her. It came at last : the little 
diabolical tempers which rose higher and higher with 
each fresh indulgence, getting weary of only fits and 
muttered communications with spirits and the thirst 
for blood grew into a frenzy. One of the younger 
children, Mrs. Mary, one day fell into a " very trouble- 
some Fit," which held her half an horn-, and at the last, 
growing better, she said, " Is it true ? Do you say this 
is the day I must scratch the young Witch ? I am glad 
of it ; I will pay her home both for myself and Sisters." 
The yoimg Pickering men who were standing by, 
hearing this, sent for Agnes to come into the room ; 
when she came in the child cried out, " Art thou come, 
thou young Witch, who hath done all this mischief?" 
At which Agnes seemed surprised, this being the first 
time Mrs. Mary had abused her. Then one of the com- 
pany told her to take Mary in her arms, and carry her 
down stairs ; but she had no sooner got hold of her than 
the child fell to scratching her head and face with eager 
fierceness ; the poor girl standing still and holding down 
her head, not defending herself but only crying out 
pitifuUy, while the child scratched on her face a broad 
and bleeding wound. When she was out of breath and 



238 THE WITCHES OF ENGLAND. 

tliiis forced to leave off, she cried and said " she was 
sorry for her cruelty, but the Thing made her do it, so 
that she could not help herself." Another day it was 
another of them who fell upon the maid, she not defend- 
ing herself or resenting, but " crying out sadly, desu'ing 
the Lord to pitty her." Then they abused her, saying, 
^' Thy Mother is a Witch, thy Father is a Witch, and 
thou art a Witch, and the worst of all ;" and then they 
clamoured for the father, the old Turk, and would have 
him in to scratch him too. Just at that moment old 
Samuel chanced to come in to see his daughter — for he 
knew what kind of treatment she had to undergo — when 
a great hubbub arose. The children cried out against 
him, and — wretched young hypocrites ! — exhorted him 
in the godliest terms to confess and repent; called 
him witch and naughty man and all the rest of the 
injuries then cuiTcnt ; while he retorted fiercely and 
rudely, and told one of the little baggages she lied — as 
she did. But Mr. Throckmorton got angry, and would 
not let him go till he had pronounced the same conju- 
ration as that by which his poor daughter was forced to 
" fyle " herself ; and when he had said the words, the 
child came out of her fit, and acted amazement and 
shame to the life. So it went on : the children having 
their fits, being visited by their spirits, of whom there 
were nine now afloat — three Smacks, Pluck, Blew, 
Catch, White, Callicot, and Hardname — and every day 
or so scratching poor Nan till her face and back and 
hands were one mass of scars and wounds. And then 
the Assize time came, and the three Samuels — father, 
mother, and daughter — were put upon their trial for 
bewitching Lady Cromwell to death, and tormenting 
Mrs. Joan Throckmorton and her sisters. There could 
be no mistake about it now, for not only had they all 



THE WITCHES OF WARBOIS. 239 

three convicted themselves by their own confessions in 
the conjuration which they had been obliged to repeat, 
but even before the judge, Mrs. Jane played off' the 
like trick, falling into a terrible fit which only old 
Samuel could get her out of by repeating the charm. 
At first he was obstinate and stm-dily refused to say the 
words ; but on the judge telling him that he should be 
brought in guilty if he did not, he consented, and had 
no sooner said — " As I am a witch, and did consent to 
the death of the Lady Cromwell, so I charge thee, 
De\al, to suffer Mrs. Jane to come out of her Fit at this 
present " — than Mrs. Jane wiped her eyes, looked round 
her, and said, " Lord father where am I ?" pretend- 
ing to be quite amazed at her position. No hand is 
wanting when there is stoning to be done. Now that 
the Samuels were fairly convicted of witchcraft in 
one instance, witnesses came forward to prove them 
guilty of the like in others. It was remembered how 
certain persons had died who had offended the old dame ; 
how others had lost their cows and whole farm stock 
in consequence of giving her rough language ; how, 
even since she had been in gaol, she had bewitched to 
his death one of the turnkeys who had chained her to a 
bedpost, and had cruelly af&icted the gaoler's own son, 
so that he could not be recovered but by " scratching " 
her ; with the further proof that when the grand jury 
returned a true bill, "billa vera," against them, old 
father Samuel burst out passionately to her with, " A 
plague of God light on thee, for thou art she that has 
brought us all to this, and we may thank thee for it." 
So the judge, " after good divine counsel given to them, 
proceeded to Judgment, which was to death." But the 
poor old woman set up a plea of being with child, though 
she was near fourscore years of age ; at which all the 



240 THE WITCHES OF ENGLAND. 

court laughed, and she herself most of all, thinking it 
might save her. Some one standing near to Agnes 
counselled her to try the like plea ; but the brave 
young girl, who had something of her father's spirit in 
her, indignantly refused. " No," said Agnes, with the 
gallows straight before her, and this desperate plea per- 
haps able to save her — " no ; it shall never be said that 

I was both Witch and ." She died with the same 

haughty courage maintained to the last: but old 
mother Samuel maundered through a vast number of 
confessions — implicated her husband — confessed to her 
spirits — but Avith one affecting touch of nature, tlirough 
all her drivel and imbecility steadily refused to crimi- 
nate her daughter. No, her Nan was no witch; she 
was clear and pure before God and towards man ; and 
neither force nor cajolery could make her forswear that 
bit of loving truth. 

When those three helpless wretches were fairly dead, 
the children, upon whose young souls lay the inefface- 
able stain of Murder, and whose first steps in life had 
been through innocent blood, gave up the game and 
pronounced themselves cured : so we hear no more of 
their fits or their spirits, or Mrs. Joan's ghostly lovers 
fighting with cowl staves and breaking each other's 
heads out of jealousy and revenge : and the last record 
of the case is, that Sir Henry Cromwell left an annual 
sum of forty shillings to provide for a yearly sermon 
agaiast witchcraft, to be preached at Huntiugdon by a 
B.D. or D.D. member of Queen's College, Cambridge. 
How terrible to think that three human lives were 
sacrificed for such wild and wilful nonsense, and that 
sane and thoughtful and noble-minded people of this 
present day walk on the way towards the same faith ! 
Better by far the most chill and desolate scepticism. 



THE MAN OF HOPE AND THE .DEVIL. 241 

wliicli at least will light no Smithfield fires for any 
forms of creed or monstrous imaginings of superstition, 
than beliefs which can only be expressed and main- 
tained by blood, and the culmination of which is in 
the suffering and destruction of all dissentients. 

THE MAX OF HOPE AND THE DEVIL * 

A young lawyer, a Mr. Darrel, had a call to the 
ministry. He was made aware of this by the extra- 
ordinary sluggishness that came upon him when he 
turned- to open a law book ; so, as preaching pimtanical 
sermons extempore was less toilsome and cost less 
study than learning the, intricacies of the Codex Angii- 
canus, he became converted to extreme doctrines, and 
was principally regarded as a Man of Hope, skilful in 
casting out devils and marvellously apt at discovering 
witchcraft. His first essay at this work was in 1587 
with Katherine Green, a young girl of seventeen, who 
had some hysterical affection which caused her to swell 
to an enormous size and led her to fancies and delu- 
sions, as, that she saw shapes and apparitions, and a 
young child without feet or legs looking at her from out 
a well. She also had fits, which she afterwards confessed 
were simulated in order to make her father-in-law, who 
was generally exceedingly severe with her, more kind 
and pliable : but Mr. Darrel said they were the fits of 
possession, and, as a proof, cast eight devils out of her ; 
specially one sturdy devil, called Middlecub, which had 
been sent into her by Margaret Eoper. i\Ir. Darrel 

* Hutchinson's ' Historical Essay concerning Witchcraft.' Boulton's 
' History of Magic' Harsent's ' Discovery of the Fravdvlent Practises 
of J. Darrel.' ' A True Relation of the Strange and Grevovs Vexation 
by the Devil of 7 Persons in Lancashire, and William Somers of Not- 
tingham.' By John Darrel. 1600. 

R 



242 Tqj;. WITCHES OF ENGL AI.T). 

at once seized Margaret Eoper, accusing her of this 
]\Iiddlecub imp, and sending her off to the magistrate, 
Mr. Fouliamb ; and in the meanwhile Katherine suffered 
herself to be repossessed, having been imprudent enough 
to talk with the devil in the likeness of a handsome 
young man who met her in the lanes, where he entertained 
her with propositions of marriage, and gave her some 
bread to eat. Mr. Fouliamb happened to be a man of 
sense, and discharged Margaret Eoper, at the same time 
threatening to send Darrel to prison in her stead if he 
took on himself to calumniate honest folk without cause. 
This rebuff cooled the young lawyer parson's ardour a 
little ; but in 1594 the Starkies of Lancashire announced 
themselves possessed, and Mr. Darrel must needs go 
down to vex the foul fiend that had gotten them. For 
he was so holy a man that the devils hated him 
mightily, being sorely vexed in his presence, and eying 
out, " Now he is gone ; now he is gone ; now blacke 
coate is gone," as soon as he quitted them, wearied 
with his wrestling. The story of the Starkies was 
this : — 

Anne, aged nine, and John, of ten, were taken with 
" dumpish heavie countenances," and fearful startings 
of their bodies, loud shouting fits, and convulsions. The 
father went to Hartley, a known conjuror, who came to 
their aid with popish charms and certain herbs ; and so 
stilled them for a year and a haK. But when he • 
'' fained as thought he would haue gone into another 
countrey," the children fell ill again, and Mr. Starkie 
thought it best to secure the perpetual services of the 
conjuror by a fee of forty shillings yearly. But Hartley 
wanted more, and thereupon began a quarrel which 
ended in the Possession of the children, of three scholars 
livmg at the Starkies, of Margaret Byron, and lastly of 



THE MAN OF HOPE AND THE DEVIL. 243 

Hartley himself. Now Hartley had a devil, and whom- 
soever he kissed he inoculated with this devil and 
breathed it into them. And as he was always kissing 
some one — John for love often, the little wenches in jest, 
to Margaret Hardman " promising a thraue of kisses," 
" wrestling with Johan Sm3rth, a maid, to kiss her " — 
he had given the devil in rich proportion all through 
the Starkies' house, and only Mr. Barrel could exorcise 
him. The possessed leaped about like goats, and crawled 
on all fours like beasts, and barked like dogs, and had 
communications from a white dove, and saw horned 
devils under the beds, and had visions of big black dogs 
with monstrous tails and bound with chains, and huge 
black cats" and big mice that knocked them down at a 
blow, and left them speechless, cold, and dead. And 
then they took to " slossinge up their meat like greedy 
dogges or hogges," and they made the saine noises as a 
broken- winded horse ; and they howled and shrieked ; 
and one of them, Jane Ashton the servant aged thirty, 
fell foul of Edmund Hartley for all his kisses and pro- 
mises of marriage ; and they " yelled and whupped ;" 
and there was in very truth the devil to pay in that 
horrible house when Mr. More and Mr. Darrel went to 
exorcise the fiends and restore the possessed to their 
senses. After some days of prayer, and of fighting 
with the devil who would cry out when Mr. Darrel 
was preaching, " Bible bable, he vsdll never have done 
pratiQg, prittle prattle ;" and " I must goe, I must 
away ; I cannot tarrie ; whither shall I goe ? I am hot, 
I am too hot, I will not dye ! " and such like, six of 
them were delivered, and visibly and bodily dispossessed. 
With one, Mary Byron, the devil came up from her 
stomach to her breast, then to her throat, when it gave 
her " a sore lug," whilst a mist dazzled her eyes. 



^ 244 THE WITCHES OF ENGLAND. 

Then she felt it go out of her mouth, leaving behind 
it a soi^e thi-oat and a filthy smell, and it was in the 
likeness of a crow's head, and it sat in a corner of 
the parlour in the dark ; but suddenly flashing out all 
a fire it flew out of the window, and the whole place 
was in a blaze, according to her imagination. John 
Starkie lost his in the shape of a man with a hump- 
back and very ill-favoured, who, when he had gone 
out wished much to re-enter, but Master John with- 
stood him, and had the best of it. He was like a " foule 
ugly man with a white beard and a ' bulch ' on his 
back." The same tale had little Ellin Holland and 
Anne Starkie to tell, all save the white beard. Elinor 
Hardman lost hers as an urchin, but presently return- 
ing through a little hole in the parlour, he offered her 
gold and silver in any quantity if she would let him 
enter again, and when she resisted he threatened to 
cast her into the fire and the pit, and to break her neck ; 
all of which threats being unheeded by the little maid 
of ten, he left her again in his old form of " m^chin." 
The next day, and the next, all these devils came again, 
seeking to repossess the children. They came in va- 
rious forms — as a black raven ; a black boy, with his 
head bigger than his body ; a black rough dog with a 
firebrand in his mouth ; five white doves ; a brave 
fellow like a wooer ; two little whelps that played on 
the table, and ran into a dish of butter ; an ape ; a 
bear with fire in his mouth ; a haystack — all, haystack 
as well as the rest, promising them bags of gold and 
silver if they might come into them again, but threaten- 
ing to break their necks and their backs, and throw 
them into the pit and the fiLre, and out of the window, 
if denied. But Messrs. More and Darrel were instant in 
prayer, and successfully withstood them. The children 



THE MAN OF HOPE AND THE DEVIL. 245 

were pronounced finally dispossessed: all save Jane 
Ashton, wlio went away to a popish family and became 
popish herself ; wherefore the devil recovered her, says 
Mr. Barrel, and her last state was worse than her first. 
As for Edmund Hartley, he was hanged at Lancaster, 
cliiefly through ]\Ir. Barrel's exertions. 

In 1596 Ml. Barrel had more work. Thomas Bar- 
ling, " the Boy of Burton," had offended old Alice 
Goodridge ; so Alice possessed him, and Mr. Barrel 
was sent for the undoing. His chief weapon in this 
case was a ranting tract called " The Enemie of Secu- 
ritie," which the devil could not abide any how, and 
during the reading of which he would cry out — through 
the earthly medium of the Boy of Burton — " Eadul- 
phus, Belzebub can doe no good, his head is stricken 
off with a word." — " We cannot prevaile (against the 
church and Mr. Barrel), for they will not be holpen by 
witches. Brother Kadulphus, we cannot prevaile ; let 
us go to our mistress and torment her ; I have had a 
draught of her blood to-day." " Againe — ' There is a 
woman earnest at prayer, get her away.' ' Nay,' quoth 
John Alsop (a man that was present), with a loude voice, 
' we cannot spare her.' Thus the Boy graced Mistress 
Wightman, his aunt. And againe, ' Brother G-lassop 
(another devil), we cannot prevaile, his faith is soe 
strong. And they fast and pray, and a preacher prayeth 
as fast as they.' " And " I bayted my hooke often, and 
at last I catcht him. Heere I was before, and heere I 
am againe, and heere I must stay, though it be but for 
a short tyme. I leade them to drink, carouse, and 
quaffe. I make them to sweare. I have leave given 
mee to doe what I will for a time. What is wightier 
than a Kinge in his owne lande ? A King I am, in whom^e 
I raigne, heere I am King for a time." With much 



246 THE WITCHES OP ENGLAND. 

more of the same kind. In the mean time old Alice 
Goodridge, who had wrought all this mischief, died in 
prison, while her devilish spirit or imp, Minnie, whom 
she had sent into the boy, racketed and rioted in his 
soul and body, and Mr. Darrel wrestled against him 
with prayer and " the Enemie of Securitie." He finally 
prevailed, and after Thomas Darling had been pos- 
sessed and dispossessed and repossessed again, deKvered 
him from Kadulphus and Minnie and Glassop and 
Beelzebub, and so had leisure to turn to some one else 
when needed. 

That some one else was soon found ; for there was 
Will Somers, a lad living with Mr. Brakenbury at 
Ashby-de-la-Zouch during the time of Mr. Barrel's 
ministry there, who was now at Nottingham, and one 
of the most accomplished demoniacs of the day. No- 
thing would satisfy Will but that Mr. Darrel should be 
sent for to cast the devil out of him. He had known 
of his prowess with Katherine Wright, and the Starkies, 
and the Boy of Burton, and why should he not glorify 
God and the Puritans as well in Nottingham as in 
Lancashire? Accordingly, that gentleman was sent 
for on the 5th of November, 1597, and the farce began. 
Before Mr. Darrel even saw the lad he said he was 
possessed, and he said the same thing to himself — 
counterfeiting or illness being of course put out of court ; 
and he described to the bystanders in what shape the 
devil would appear when driven out of the lad — for he 
would make himself visible to them if they had but 
faith and courage and patience to see the end, and if 
they would not be terrified when the boy " scriehed 
or cryed aloude in a strange and supernaturall manner ; 
sometimes roaring fearfullye lyke a beare, and crying 
like a swyne." The shapes, then, in which he would 



THE MAN OF HOPE AND THE DEVIL. 247 

go were these — " a Mouse, a Man with a Hunch-back 
higher than his Head, an ugly Man with a white Beard, 
a Crow's Head round, a great Breath, ugly like a Toad, 
an Urchin, &c." xind he told them, also in the lad's 
hearing, of what other possessed persons had done : 
how they had cast themselves into fire or w^ater, 
gnashed with their teeth, writhed with their necks, 
and drawn their mouths awry, foaming. Then he said 
that Will Somers was afflicted for the sins of Notting- 
ham, and God had made even the devil a preacher to 
deter them from them ; whereat Will acted by signs 
all the sins of Nottingham, and Mr. Darrel explained 
them to the people as he went on. With such a master 
as this, it was no difficult matter for the pupil to suc- 
ceed. Two sermons were preached on his behalf. 
Dm-ing Mr. Aldred's he lay still, excepting a little 
struggle now and then : this was to show that Mr. 
Aldred was not powerful as a Man of God. But when 
Mr. Darrel began, he roused himself up, and on his 
describing the fourteen signs of Possession one after 
the other, acted them all to the life as he told them 
off. " He tore ; he foamed ; he wallowed ; his Face was 
drawn awry ; his Eyes would stare and his Tongue hang 
out; he had a Swelling would seem to run from his 
Forehead down by his Ear and Throat, and through 
his Belly and Thighs, to the Calf of liis Legs ; he would 
speak with his Mouth scarce mo^dng ; and when they 
looked his Tongue would seem drawn down his Throat ; 
he would try to cast himself into the Fire and Water ; he 
would seem heavy that they could not lift him, and his 
Joints stiff that they could not bend them." And when 
Mr. Darrel further exhorted them all to stand firm, and 
they would see the glory of God in the dispossession, he 
cried and rended and laid as if dead, just in the order 



24B THE WITCHES OF ENGLAND. 

which the preacher desu-ed. Then he rose up cured and 
exorcised ; but Mr. Barrel told him he might be pos- 
sessed agaui, and he must be very careful and watchful. 
Of course he was possessed again. He had been too great 
a gainer by the first trial not to venture on a second. 
If he had been bought off his apprenticeship, had 
large presents of clothes, and kept in idleness at his 
father-in-law's, for a first trial, w^hat might not fall from 
the skies on this second occasion ? So Will began to 
talk wildly of a black dog that haunted him, offering 
him gold and ginger, and of the devil who came with 
six more shapes to torment him — namely, as a cock, a 
crane, a snake, an angel, a toad, a newt, a set of ^dols, 
and dancers, and that he stood before him '' with a foure- 
forked cappe on his heade ;" sometimes, too, making 
noises and motions like whelps or " kitlings." Fourteen 
persons were thrown into prison, accused of bewitching 
Master Will, of whom the most celebrated was Millicent 
HorsKe, whom no human skill could have saved had 
not the impostor betrayed himself in time. For Will 
Somers had a revelation concerning her, which must be 
told in the words of his " confession, " as reported by 
Harsnet : — *' Maister Barrel told my father-in-law and 
others in my hearing, that he, the said Maister Darrel, 
Maister Aldred, and some others, were going to carrie 
MiUicent Horsley (that present morning) to the said 
Maister Perkins, to be examiued. Whereupon, I gessing 
by the time of Maister Barrel's departure, and by the 
distance of the way, and of the likelihood that she 
woulde deny herselfe to bee a witche, said to those that 
were present by mee in one of my fittes, about eleven 
of the clocke, that Millicent Horsley was in examiuing, 
and that she denyed herselfe to be a witch." This co- 
incidence was too striking an instance of supernatural 



THE MAN OF HOPE AND THE DEVIL. 249 

power to be overlooked. Mr. Barrel worked on it as 
one of the most marvellous proofs of the boy's unde- 
niable possession, and Millicent Horsley lay in gaol, 
together with thirteen others, to satisfy the craft of one 
and the credulity of the other, and to prove the whole 
age sick, diseased, and enfeebled by superstition. 

Will's sister, Mary Cowper, seeing how pleasant and 
profitable a thing it was to be bewitched, followed in 
her brother's steps, and cried out on Alice Freeman, a 
poor old creature who thought to escape by saying she 
was with child. The plea was not a very safe one, for 
Mr. Barrel told her if she was, it was by the devil, and 
she had better have held her tongue. But by this 
time the parish authorities got frightened, and inter- 
fered; sending Will off to the workhouse, where he 
still continued his fits and antics, until a rough fellow 
there, one John Shepheard, told him that if he " did 
not leave and rise up he would set such a pair of Knip- 
knaps upon him as should make him rue it" — when 
he gathered himself up and confessed his imposture. 
Mr. Barrel would have none of this recantation. He 
said he was more possessed than ever, and that it was 
the devil within him that made him to lie. So Will 
wrote the following letter, as a kind of quietus to his 
zealous friend : — 

" Mr. Barrel, my hearty Commendations unto you. 
This is to desire you that you would let me be at quiet : 
For whereas you said that I was Possessed, I was not ; 
and for those Tricks that I did before you came, Was 
through Folks Speeches that came to me : And those 
that I did since, was through your Speeches, and others. 
For as you said I could not hear, I did hear aU Things 
that were done in the House, and aU Things that I did 
were counterfeit ; And I pray you to let it pass ; for 



250 THE WITCHES OF ENGLAND. 

tlie more you meddle in it, the more discredit it will 
be for you: And I pray God, and you, and all the 
World to forgive me." 

Even this was not enough. Will was bribed over by 
the promise of a good place in a gentleman's house if 
he would be properly demoniac again ; and consenting 
thereto, played again his old tricks ; but the Lord 
Chief Justice, Sir Edmund Anderson, not believing a 
word of it all, encouraged him kindly to tell the truth, 
and not be afraid ; so Will started up and was perfectly 
well, and for the greater satisfaction of the gentlefolks 
showed them how he worked. 

And to prove how small was the value of evidence 
in those days, one Eichard Mee — who was held to have 
deposed " That he had seen William Somers turn his 
Face directly backward, not moving his Body, and that 
his Eyes were as great as Beasts' Eyes, and that his 
Tongue would be thrust out of his Head to the bigness 
of a Calve's Tongue " when re-examined explained him- 
self thus : — " My Meaning was that he turned his Face 
a good Way towards his Shoulder, and that his Eyes 
were something gogling ; and by reason that it was 
Candle-light when I saw his Tongue thrust out, and by 
reason of my Conceit of the Strangeness of Somers's 
Troubles, it seemed somewhat bigger than, if Somers 
had been well, I should have thought it to have been." 
Again, a black dog which Will had cried out on as 
the devil, and which, by reason of his words had 
actually been taken for the devil with eyes giariug 
like fire, come back to repossess him, turned out to 
be nothing but a spurrier's dog crouching in the back- 
ground of the darkening chamber. So, when care- 
fully sifted, would the evidence of all such-like marvels 
prove to be merest chaff scattered on the ground; 



I 



GIFFARD'S ANECDOTES. 251 

and yet, a century after, Mr. Eichard Bouiton is found 
repeating the story of Will Somers' possession as if it 
had never been disproved; and there are some even 
now living who would cite it as a case of proved 
spiritualism. Mr. Barrel was degraded from the mi- 
nistry, and committed to close prison : rather harsh 
measiu'es simply because he had more faith and a little 
less discretion than his neighbours. 



GIFFARD'S ANECDOTES.* 

George Giffard, " minister of God's word in Mai- 
den," put forth a little book in 1603, containing a 
number of witch stories and anecdotes, without names, 
dates, or places, yet written in a manner and style 
evidently proving their reliability, and all seeming to 
have come within his own personal knowledge as be- 
lieved in by others. One, whom he knew, under the 
assumed name of one of his characters was constantly 
troubled by a hare, which his conscience accused him 
was a witch " she stared at him so ;" and sometimes an 
ugly weasel would run through his yard ; and sometimes 
a foul big cat sit upon his barn, for which he had no 
manner of liking; and an old woman of the place, 
whom he had been as careful to please as if she had 
been his mother, still frowned upon him to his exceeding 
discomfort ; and a hog which overnight had eaten his 
meat with his fellows, quite hearty and well, in the 
morning was stark dead ; and five or six hens died too, 
in a manner no one could understand, save by the 
power of witchcraft. And once another of his friends 

* ' A Dialogue concerning "Witches and Witchcrafts.' 1603. 



^5^ THE WITCHES OF ENGLAND. 

went to a cunning man who lived twenty miles off, 
complaining of his farm-yard losses : so the cunning 
man took a glass, and bidding him look in it, showed 
him a certain suspected witch therein, telling him that 
she had three or four imps, " some call them puckrels," 
one of which was like a gray cat, another like a weasel, 
a third like a mouse. There was also another cunning 
person — a woman — to whom a father took a child that 
had long been lame and pained. The woman told the 
man he had an ill neighbour, and that the child was 
forespoken. " Marie, if he would go home and bring 
her some of the clothes which the child lay in all 
night, she would tell him certainely." The father went 
home and did as he was bid, when the wise woman 
informed him that the girl was bewitched, counselled 
him what to do, and the " girle is well at this day, and 
a pretie quicke girle," says G-eorge Giffard, with a 
sneer at his neighbour's easy faith. Another had his wife 
much troubled ; so he, too, went off to a wise woman, 
who told him that his wife was haunted by a fairy. As 
a counter-charm she was bidden to wear a part of St. 
John's Gospel ever about her, against which the fairies 
could not stand, so fled. Another good wife could not 
make her butter come: it was bewitched, and for a 
whole week obstinately disregarded the laws of butter 
nature : wherefore they heated a spit, red hot, and 
thrust it into the cream — and it came at once. The 
next morning the good wife met the suspected witch — 
*' the old filth," she calls her with more emphasis than 
euphony. " Lord, how sowerly she looked upon me, 
and mumbled as she went ! Ah, quoth she, you have 
an honest man to your husband. I hear how he doth 
use me !" The wife longed to scratch the witch, her 
stomach rose so against her, but she was afraid she 



GIFFARD'S ANECDOTES. 253 

would prove the stronger, for she was " a histie old 
quean," and let her pass unmolested. 

In a certain village a wealthy man was suddenly 
reduced to comparative poverty by extraordinary losses 
in his farm ; he himself fell ill, and his child of seven 
years of age sickened and died. He sent to the same 
wise woman at E. H., who told him that he was be- 
witched, and moreover, that there were three witches 
and one wizard in the town where he lived. The fore- 
spoken farmer caused the one whom he most suspected 
to be seized and examined, who at last confessed, after 
making " much ado," and taking up the time of the 
worshipful justice to no good. She said that she had 
three imps, a cat Lightfoot, a toad Lunch, a weasel 
Makeshift. Lightfoot had been given to her sixteen 
years ago, by one Mother Barlie of W. in return 
for an oven cake ; the toad and the weasel came of their 
own accord and offered their services gratuitously. 
The cat killed kine, the weasel killed horses, and 
the toad plagued men ; so the poor old creature was 
sent to the county gaol, where she died before the 
assizes. Another woman, old Mother W. of Great T., 
had an imp like a weasel. " She was offended highly 
with one H. M. ; home she went, and called forth 
her spirit, which lay in a pot of woole under her bed : 
she willed him to go plague the man : he inquired 
what she would give him, and he would kill H. M. 
She said she would give him a cocke, which she did, 
and he went, and the man fell sicke with a greate paine 
in his belly, languished and died ; the witch was 
arraigned, condemned, and hanged, and did confesse 
all this." 

Seven miles hence, at W. B., a man in good health 
suddenly fell sick, pined for half a year, and then died. 



254 THE WITCHES OF ENGLAND. 

His wife, suspecting evil doings j went to a cunning 
woman, who showed her in a glass the likeness of the 
witch who had destroyed him, wearing an old red cap 
with corners, such as women were used to wear. The 
old red-capped woman was taken, tried, soon brought 
to confess to the bewitching of the man, and executed. 
But before she died she told them all, how that she 
had a spirit in the likeness of a yellow dun cat, which 
came to her one night as she sat by the fire nursing 
angry thoughts against a neighbour with whom she 
had fallen out. She was frightened, she said, but the 
cat bid her not be afraid, for it had served an old dame, 
that was now dead, for ^ye years down in Kent, and 
would serve her now, an she would. The woman took 
the cat at its word, and by it killed many a cow and 
hog of those who angered her : at last she sent it to 
this man, and the cat killed him. She was hanged, 
and the yellow dun imp was never more seen. 

Mr. Giffard knew a church which had been robbed 
of its communion service : a wise man told the church- 
wardens what to do and the thief would surely ride 
in all haste to confess. As it proved. Another case 
was that of a child taken piteously ill. Under the 
cunning man's advice the father burnt its clothes, and 
while they were burning, the witch came running in, 
grievously pained. The child was well within two days. 
A butcher had a son, John, terribly afflicted with sores. 
Salves and plasters would not heal him ; but when a 
cunning man showed him in a glass the form of the 
witch who had laid this harmful thing upon him, and 
they had cut off some of the boy's hair and burnt it, 
the old woman came to the house in all speed, crying, 
" John, John, scratch me !" So John scratched her till 
the blood came, and his sores all healed of themselves. 



/' - 



GIFFARD'S ANECDOTES. 



255 



without salve or plaster helping. A woman had blear 
eyes that were watery; a knave lodging at the house 
wrote a charm which she was always to wear about her 
neck, and never lose or look at. She wore her charm, 
and* her eyes got quite well ; but one day, prompted by 
Eve's sin, she opened the packet, and found a piece of 
paper on which was written, in the German tongue, 
" The devil plucke out thine eyes and fill their holes 
with dirt." Terrified at the unholy nature of her cure, 
the woman flung the charm away, and her eyes imme- 
diately became bleared and watery as before.* A 
woman suspected of witchcraft was taken in hand by 
a gentleman, who undertook to induce her to con- 
fess. She was very stiff about the matter, and denied 
all dealings with the devil in any way. Suddenly, at 
some distance from them, appeared a weasel or a 
lobster, looking straight at them. " Look !" said the 
gentleman, " yonder same is thy spii-it !" " Oh, 
master," said she, "that is a vermine. There be many 
of them everywhere." But as they went towards it, 
the weasel or lobster vanished clean out of sight. 
" Surely,'^ said the gentleman, " it is thy spirit." But 
still she denied, " and with that her mouth was drawn 
all awrie." When a little further pressed she allowed 
all, and the gentleman, being no justice, sent her home, 
exhorting her to go to a magistrate and ease her soul 
by confession. As she got home she was met by 
another witch who came violently enraged against 
her. " Ah, thou beast ! what hast thou done ? thou hast 
bewrayed us all!" she said. "What remedy now?*' 
said she. " What remedy ?" saith the other, " send 
thy spirit and touch him." At that moment the gen- 
tlema.n felt, as it were, a flash of fire about him ; but he 
* This is an old story, found in all books on witchcraft. 



2^6 THE WITCHES OF ENGLAND. 

lifted his hat and prayed, and the spirit came back 
and said it could do him no hurt, because he had faith. 
So then they sent it against his child, and the child 
was taken ill with great pain and died. The witches 
confessed and were hanged. Another witch had her 
spirit hidden in the boll of a tree ; and there she held 
long conversations with this ghastly Ariel, he answering 
in a hollow ghoustie voice, as might be expected. 
When any offended her, she would go to the tree 
and release her imp to do them harm. She had killed 
many hogs, horses, and the like by this spirit ; but at 
last justice got hold of her with its mailed hand and 
killed her. Another friend of Giffard's, also under the 
disguise of one of his characters, was twice on a jury, 
when certain old women were charged with harming 
their neighbours' goods and lives. There was no proof 
in either case, and the old women protested their inno- 
cence passionately; but the jury brought them in 
guilty, which was perfectly logical and right according 
to their notions of the law of that God who suffers the 
devil to torment the sons of men, and to delude old women 
into the possession of unholy powers. A^Hiat, indeed, 
could be done with them when, by a look or a word, they 
could afflict even unto death the most beautiful of 
God's creatures, and send the devil to inhabit the 
purest of souls ? The mischief lay in the fundamental 
creed, not so much in the application of it, terrible and 
bloody as it was ; and it is against this creed, that I 
would most earnestly insist. It must be remembered, 
too, that Giffard writes ironically, and brings together 
all these cases as evidence of the foolishness and wicked- 
ness of the faith. 



257 



THE POSSESSED MAID OF THAMES STREET.* 

In 1603, Mary Glover, a merchant's daughter in 
Thames Street, gave herself out as bewitched, and said 
that Mother Jackson had done it. A little glimmering of 
reason made the physician Dr. Boncraft tell the Lord 
Chief Justice Anderson that Mother Jackson was wrong- 
fully accused, and the girl was counterfeiting. So the Lord 
Chief Justice caused the Eecorder of London, Sir John 
Crook, have her to him in his chambers in the Temple. 
The maid went with her mother and some neighbours, 
and in an hour's time came Mother Jackson, disguised 
like a country market woman, with a muffler hiding 
her face, an old hat, and a short cloak bespattered with 
mii'e. As soon as she entered the maid fell backward 
on the floor ; " her Eyes drawn into her Head, her 
Tongue toward her Throat, her Mouth drawn up to her 
Ear, her Bodie became stiff and senseless. Her Lips being 
shut closs a plain and audible Yoice came out from her 
Nostrils saying * Hang her, hang her.' " The Eecorder, 
willing to try her, called for a candle at which to light 
a sheet of paper, then held the burning paper to her 
hand till a blister came, rising and breaking and the 
water running down on the floor. But still the maid lay 
as if dead, with the Voice coming out of her Nostrils, 
saying, " Hang her, hang her." Not satisfied with the 
trial of burning, the Eecorder got a long pin, which he 
made hot and thrust up her nostrils to see if she would 
" neese," wink, bend her brows, or stir her head ; but 
still she lay as before, stiff, senseless, and as one dead. 
The minister, one Lewis Hughes, who tells this story 
which Sinclair quotes, told the Eecorder that he had 

* George Sinclair's ' Satan's Invisible World Displayed.' 

S 



258 THE WITCHES OF ENGLAND. 

often prayed with the maid, and that when he con- 
cluded with the Lord's Prayer and came to " but 
deliver us from all evil," the maid would be tost and 
shaken as a mastiff might shake a cur. Then the 
Eecorder bade the witch say the Lord's Prayer, but she 
could not say it : she kept on all right until the clause 
*' deliver us from evil," and this she skipped over ; 
neither would she confess that Jesus Christ was our 
Lord in the Articles of the Christian Faith. When 
Mary was in her fits, if the witch but so much as laid 
her hand upon her she was tost and shaken fearfully. 
This the Eecorder wished to verify: so he bade first 
one, then another, of the neighbours come forward and 
touch her ; which they did ; but she never stirred till 
Mother Jackson touched her, when she was shaken as 
before. Then the Eecorder said, " Lord, have mercy 
upon the woman !" for he was now fully convinced ; and 
sent poor old Mother Jackson off to Newgate. As soon 
as she was sent off the maid came to herself, the voice 
ceased out of her nostrils, and she went home with her 
mother. Three weeks or more after the witch was 
condemned, the maid had the same fits, strange and 
fearful to behold, and the Eecorder told the minister, 
and all the ministers of London, '^ that we might be 
ashamed to see a Child of God in the Claws of the Devil 
without any hope of deliverance but by such means as 
God had appointed — Fasting and Prayer." Then five 
ministers, all good Christians and sound behevers, 
assembled and prayed from morning to candle-light, 
when Mary suddenly started out of her chair — they 
crying " Jesus help, Jesus save !" — and came up to 
Lewis Hughes, in a state of wildness and dismay. 
As he stood behind her holding her by the arms, 
she lifted both herself and him off the ground, foam- 



THE POSSESSED IIAIB OF THAIMES STREET. 259 

ing at the mouth and struggling thus all over the 
chamber ; and then her strength gave way, and she fell 
as if dead, her head hanging down and her limbs, which 
had been so stiff and frozen, now supple and limber. 
In a short time her eyes came back into their place 
and her tongue came out of her throat, and she looked 
round and said cheerfully, " Oh ! he is come, he is 
come ! The Comforter is come ! the Comforter is come ! 
I am delivered, I am delivered !" Her father hearing 
these words wept and said, " These were her grand- 
father's words when he was at the stake, the fire crack- 
ling about him," for he died a martyr to the Eeformed 
Faith in Queen Mary's time. Then she prayed and 
thanked Cod till her voice was weak, and so the com- 
pany separated, and Mary went home. Afterv>ards 
she was put mth Lewis Hughes for a year, lest Satan 
should assault her again, and Mr. John Swan wrote the 
most canting and nauseating book on her " case " that 
ever fanatic penned or the duped and the gulled be- 
hoved. But poor old Mother Jackson was dead : and 
those who mourned for her, mom^ned in secret and 
silence and shame. 

- There was another case of possession, this same 
year — Thomas Harrison, the Boy of Xorwich — chiefly 
remarkable for having procured such attention from 
the ecclesiastical authorities that seven persons were 
formally licensed to have private prayers and fasting 
for his deliverance. But the bishop and commissioners 
who had seen his fits thought him an impostor, so his 
case died out for want of pubhc support.* 

And now we have the master of kingcraft on the 
throne, with his mania against witches, his private vices, 
and pubhc follies, treacherous, cruel, narrow-minded, 

* Hutchinson's ' Essay on Witchcraft.' 



260 THE WITCHES OF ENGLAND. 

and cowardly beyond anything that has ever disgraced 
the English throne before or since. And one of the first 
trials for witchcraft during his reign was that disgraceful 
affair in which Somerset and his wife, Foreman, Sir 
Thomas Overbury, and Mrs. Turner were all mixed up 
together. 



SWEET FATHER FOREMAN. 

That Carr and Lady Essex should have an intrigue 
together was not so bad, but that Mrs. Turner should 
have recourse to charms and conjurations, " to inchant 
the Viscount's affection towards her," that " much time 
should be spent, many words of witchcraft, great cost 
in making pictures of wax, crosses of silver, and little 
babies for that use," that specially, there should be 
among the images of wax, one " very sumptuously ap- 
parrelled in silke and sattin, as alsoe another sitting 
in forme of a naked woman spreading and laying forth 
her haires in a glass," was terrible misdoing against 
both God and the king. The murder of Sir Thomas 
Overbury was venial ; the intrigue between his favourite 
and another man's wife was venial too ; his own vices 
were mere kindly flea-bites on his dignity ; but charms 
and conjurations, and my Lady Essex calling that old 
wizard Foreman her " sweet father" — this was more 
than the British Solomon could well digest. So when 
he had got tired of Carr and wanted to be rid of him, he 
suddenly remembered sweet Father Foreman, disciple of 
Dr. Dee, and Mrs. Turner, inventor of yellow starch for 
ruffs and falling bands, and not only smote Somerset 
straight in the face for his own share, but sent a side shaft 
after him, through his " creatures." Well for himself 



THE WITCHES OF NORTHAMPTONSHIKE. 261 

was it that sweet Father Foreman was dead and buried 
deep ; so there only remained Mrs. Turner and one or 
two inferior agents in the matter — just enough to keep 
the people amused, and satisfy the royal lust for witch 
blood. Somerset came to the block on another count, 
about as false as the rest ; and Mrs. Turner swung from 
the gibbet in her yellow ruff on every plea but the right 
one, and for any sin but those of her real and actual life. 
After her death was found her black scarf full of white 
crosses : and the mould in which Father Foreman had cast 
his leaden images of women ; and written charms spread 
out on fair white parchment ; and, worst of all, a list of 
all the ladies who had gone to consult the sorcerer as to 
how they might gain the love of other lords than their 
own ; which list the Lord Chief Justice would not read 
out in court because, said the gossips, his own wife's name 
was the first that caught his eye. 



THE WITCHES OF NORTHAMPTONSHIRE.* 

" Of poor parentage, and poor education," old Agues 
Browne had but a sorry Hfe of it in the little town of 
Gilsborough where she lived. She had one daughter, 
Joan Yaughan, or Yarnham, *' a maide, or at least 
unmarried," says the old black-letter book maliciously ; 
" as gratious as the mother, and both of them as farre 
from grace as Heaven from hell ;" which Joan was " so 

* ' The Witches of Northamptonshire. 
Agnes Browne, ] Arthur BiU, 
loane Yaughan, 

Mary Barber. 
Who were all executed at Northampton the 22 of luly last, 1612. 

'London. Printed by Tho. Purfoot for Arthur lohnson. 1612/ 
A rare and valuable little black-letter tract. 



\ Arthur BiU, ) ^.. , 

J Hellen lenkinson, / 



262 THE WITCHES OF ENGLAND. 

well brought up vnder her mother's elbow, that she 
hangd with her for company vnder her mother's nose." 
It seems that one day, Joan, being in the company of a 
certain Mistress Belcher, *' a virtuous and godly Gentle- 
Avoman of the same towne of Gilsborough, whether of 
purpose to giue occasion of anger to the saide Mistris 
Belcher, or but to continue her vilde and ordinary cus- 
tome of behauiour, committed something either in 
speech or gesture so vnfitting, and vnseeming the 
nature of womanhood " that Mistress Belcher's patience 
could bear with her no longer. She got up, beat Joan 
Yaughan, and *' forced her to avoid the company." 
Joan went away muttering that she would be revenged ; 
to which replied Mrs. Belcher stoutly, that she feared 
neither her nor her mother, and bade her do her worst. 
Then Joan went home to her mother, and both together 
devised such a punishment that Mrs. Belcher was griped 
and gnawed of her body, her mouth drawn all a^vry, 
and in such powerful fits that she could scarce be held, 
crying out incessantly in her fits, " Here comes Joane 
Vaughan, away with Joane Yaughan !" till all the world 
knew that she was bewitched, and that old Agnes 
Browne and her daughter had caused the trouble. 
Mistress Belcher's brother, one Master Avery, hearing 
of his sister's sickness and extremity, came to see her ; 
and when he saw her, was moved to such anguish and 
indignation that he must needs go to the house of the 
witches to hale them to his sister, that she might draw 
their blood. But though he twice essayed, he was 
twice arrested by some miraculous agency, spell-bound, 
and unable to move hand or foot ; he could not, by 
any possibility, advance beyond a certain spot, whereby 
the witches were safe for this time at least, " the devil, 
who was standing sentinel," being stronger than he. 



THE WITCHES OF NORTHAMPTONSHIRE. 263 

Wherefore sorrowfully he tm-ned back, and went home 
to his own place. But these "imps of the devil" 
had longer arms than he, and in a very short time he 
was as grievously tormented as his sister, his torments 
enduring until the witches were arrested and taken to 
Northampton gaol. When there, nothing would satisfy 
Mistress Belcher and her brother Master Avery but that 
they should goto the prison and "scratch" the witches; 
which they did, and both recovered of their pains mar- 
vellously on the instant. "Howbeit they were no 
sooner out of sight, but they fell againe into their old 
traunces, and were more violently tormented than before ; 
for when Mischiefe is once a foote, she grows in short 
time so headstrong, that she is hardly curbed." Mistress 
Belcher and Master Avery returning home from North- 
ampton in a coach, after their godly exercise of drawing 
blood from these two wretched women, saw suddenly 
a man and woman riding both upon a black horse. At 
which Master Avery cried out that either they or then- 
horses should presently miscarry ; and he had no sooner 
spoken than both their horses fell down dead. Where- 
fore, for all these crimes, as well as for bewitching a 
young child to death, Agnes Browne and her daughter 
Joan were adjudged guilty, and hanged on that 22nd 
of July, protesting their innocence to the last. And 
then it came out that about a fortnight before her 
apprehension Agnes Browne, Katherine Gardiner, and 
Joan Lucas, "all birds of a winge," had been seen 
riding on a sow's back to a place called Eavenstrop, to 
see one Mother Bhoades, an old witch that dwelt there. 
But before they got there old Mother Khoades had died, 
" and in her last cast cried out that there were three of 
her old friends comming to see her, but they came too 
late. Howbeit she would meet with them in another 



264 THE WITCHES OF ENGLAND. 

place within a month after. And thus much concerning 
Agnes Browne and her daughter Joane Vaughan," says 
the old black-letter book contemptuously. 

The son of witches, Arthur Bill could not control his 
appointed fate. Suspected by the authorities, but with- 
out proof, he and his father and mother were swum for 
trial, tied cross bound and flung into the water, where 
they floated and did not sink. Arthur was accused of 
bewitching to her death one Martha Aspine, as also of 
having bewitched sundry cattle ; and as the parents had 
a bad name, it was thought best to try them all. After 
this trial of the water, Arthur was afraid, says the black- 
letter book, lest his father should relent and betray him 
and them all ; whereupon he sent for his mother, and 
both together bewitched a round ball into his father's 
throat, so that he could not speak a word. When the 
ball was got out, the father proved the principal witness 
against them. The poor mother, who seems to have 
been a loving, sensitive, downcast woman, fainted many 
times during this terrible period ; " Many times com- 
plaining to her spirit," says the bitter, uncharitable, 
anonymous author, " that the power of the Law would 
bee stronger than the power of her art, and that shee 
saw no other likelihood but that shee should be hanged 
as her Sonne* was like to bee : To whom her spirit 
answered, giuing this sorry comfort, that shee should 
not bee hanged, but to preuent that shee should cut her 
owne throatt. Shee, hearing this sentence and holding 
it definitive, in great agony and horror of minde and 
conscience fell a rauing, crying out that the nreuocable 
Judgement of her death was giuen, and that shee was 
damned perpetually ; cursing and banning the time 
wherein shee was borne, and the houre wherein shee 
was conceiued." A short time after " shee made good 



THE WITCHES OF NORTH AMPTONSHIEE. 2G5 

the Deuil's worde, and to preuent the Justice of the Law, 
and to sane the hangman a labour, cut her owne 
throate." The poor boy was in great misery when he 
heard of his mother's death, and knew now that what 
despair had done for her, the tyranny of superstition 
would do for him ; yet " he stood out stiffly for his inno- 
cence," and when found guilty, broke out into grievous 
cries, saying that he had now found the Law to have a 
power above Justice, for that it had condemned an Inno- 
cent. At the gallows he said the same thing, refusing 
to confess to Martha Aspine's murder, and " thus with a 
dissembling Tongue, and a corrupted conscience, hee 
ended his course in this world, with little hope or 
respect (as it seemed) of the world to come." What 
became of his three familiars, Grissil, Ball, and Jack, 
we are not informed, neither of what forms or func- 
tions they were, nor of what colours or dimensions. 

Grievously did Mistress Moulsho offend Ellen Jen- 
kinson, when she caused her to be searched for witch- 
marks, which of course were found ; for Helen's character 
was notorious, and there is no smoke without a little 
fire. So Helen, in revenge, played Mistress Moulsho a 
trick that brought herself to the gallows. For " at that 
time Mistris Moulsho had a Bucke of clothes to be 
w^asht out. The next morning, the Mayd, when shee 
came to hang them forth to dry, spyed the Cloathes, but 
especially Mistris Moulsho's Smocke, to bee all be- 
spotted with the pictures of Toades, Snakes, and other 
ougly Creatures, which making her agast, she went 
presently and told her mistris, who, looking on them, 
smild, saying nothing else but this: 'Here are fine 
Hobgoblins indeede.' And being a Gentlewoman of a 
stout com^age, went immediately to the house of the 
sayd Hellen lenkinson, and with an angry countenance 



266 THE WITCHES OF ENGLAND. 

told her of this matter, threatening her that if her Linnen 
were not shortly cleered from those foule spots shee 
would scratch out both her eyes ; and so not staying for 
any answere, went home and found her linnen as white 
as it was at first." Helen was soon after arraigned for 
the death of a child, by witchcraft, but this story of 
Mrs. Moulsho's clothes all bespotted with the figures of 
toads and snakes stood in the stead of any more rational 
evidence. Wlien found guilty, the poor creature cried 
out, " Woe is me, I now cast away !" And when at the 
place of execution, she " made no other Confession but 
this. That shee was guiltlesse, and neuer shewed signe 
of Contrition for what was past, nor any sorrow at all, 
more than did accompany the feare of death. Thus 
ended this Woman her miserable life, after shee had 
lived many yeares poore, wretched, scorned, and for- 
saken of the world." 

Of Mary Barber, the last of the sad crew hanged at 
Northampton on those bloody assizes, the author gives 
no special account, but plenty of abuse, mixed up with 
the strangely cruel and immoral morality of the day. 
He says that "as shee was of meane Parents, so 
was she monstrous and hideous both in her life and 
actions. Her education and barbarous Nature neuer 
promising to the world anything but what was rude, 
violent, and without any hope of proportion more than 
only in the square of uitiousnesse. For out of the 
oblyuion and blindnesse of her seduced senses, she gaue 
way to all the passionate and earthly faculties of the 
flesh, and followed all the Fantazmas Vanities and 
Chimeras of her polluted and vnreasonable delights, 
forsaking the Society of G-race, and gTowing enamored 
vpon all the euill that Malice or Frenzy could minister 
to her vicious desires and intendments." She was put 



THE AYITCHES OF NOKTHAMPTONSHIKE. 267 

in prison on the charge of bewitching a man to death, 
but *'the prison (which makes men bee fellowes and 
chambermates with theeves and murtherers) the 
common guests of such dispised Innes, and should 
cause the Imprisoned Party (like a Christian Arithme- 
tician) to number and cast Tp the amount of his own 
Life, neuer put her in minde of the hatefiill transgres- 
sions shee had committed, and to consider the filth and 
leprosie of her soule, and intreate heaven's mercy for 
the release thereof. Prison put her not in minde of her 
graue, nor the grates and lockes put her in remem- 
brance of hell, which depriued her of the ioy of liberty, 
wliich shee saw others possesse. The iangling of irons 
did not put her in minde of the chaines wherewith 
shee should be bound in eternall torments, ynlesse 
heaven's mercy vnloosed them, nor of the howling- 
terrors and g-nashing of teeth which in hel euery soule 
shaU receiue for the particular offences committed in 
this life, without vnfained and liearty contrition. Shee 
neuer remembered or thought shee must die, or trem- 
bled for feare of what should come to her after death. 
But as her use was alwaies knowne to be deuihsh, so her 
death was at last found to be desperate. For shee (and 
the rest before named) being brought from the common 
gaole of Northampton to Northampton Castle, where 
the Assizes are vsually held, were seuerally arraigned 
and indited for the offences they had formerly com- 
mitted, but to the inditement they pleaded not gnUty. 
Putting therefore then- causes to the triaU of the 
Countrey, they were found gTiilty, and deserved death by 
the verdit of a credible lury retm-ned. So without any 
confession or contrition, like birds of a feather they all 
held and hangd together for company at Abington 
gailowes hard by Northampton the two and twintieth 



268 THE WITCHES OF ENGLAND. 

day of luly last past ; Leaning beliinde them in prison 
many others tainted with the same corruption, who 
without much mercy and repentance are likely to follow 
them in the same tract of Precedencie." 



THE WITCHES OF LANCASHIRE * 

In Pendle Forest, a wild tract of land on the borders 
of Yorkshire, lived an old woman about the age of 
fourscore, who had been a witch for fifty years, and had 
brought up her own children, and instructed her grand- 
children, to be witches. " She was a generall agent for 
the Deuill in all these partes ;" her name was Elizabeth 
Southernes, usually called Mother Demdike ; the date 
of her arraignment 1612. She was the first tried of this 
celebrated " coven," twenty of whom stood before Sir 
James Altham and Sir Edward Bromley, charged with 
all the crimes lying in sorcery, magic, and witchcraft. 
Old Mother Demdike died in prison before her trial, 
but on her being taken before the magistrate who con- 
victed them all, Koger Nowell, Esq., she made such a 
confession as effectually insured her due share of exe- 
cration, and hedged in the consciences of all who had 
assailed her from any possible pangs of self-reproach or 
doubt. 

About fifty years ago, she said, she was returning 
home from begging, when, near a stone pit in the 
Pendle Forest, she met a spirit or devil in the shape of 
a boy, with one half of his coat brown and the other 
half black, who said to her, if she would give him her 

* • The Wonderful Discoverie of Witches in the County of Lancaster.' 
By Thomas Potts. 1613. Thomas Wright's ' Narrative of Sorcery 
and Magic' 1851. 



THE WITCHES OF LANCASHIRE. 269 

soul, she should have all that she might desire. After a 
little further talk, during which he told her that his 
name was Tibb, he vanished away, and she saw him no 
more for this time. For iive or six years Mother Dem- 
dike never asked any kiud of help or harm of Tibb, 
who always came to her at " daylight gate " (twilight) ; 
but one Sabbath morning, she having her little child on 
her knee, and being in a light slumber, Tibb came to 
her in the likeness of a brown dog, and forced himself 
on her knee, trying to get blood from under her left 
arm. Mother Demdike awoke sore troubled and 
amazed, and strove to say, " Jesus, save my child," but 
could not, neither could she say, " Jesus, save myself." 
In a short time the brown dog vanished away, and she 
was " almost starke madde for the space of eight 
weekes." She and Tibb had never done much harm, 
she said ; not even to Eichard Baldwin, for all that he 
had put them off his land, and taken her daughter's 
day's work at his mill without fee or reward, and when 
she, led by her grandchild Alison (for she was quite 
blind), went to ask for pay, gave them only hard words 
and insolence for their pains, saying, " he would burn 
the one, and hang the other," and bidding them begone 
for a couple of witches — and worse. She confessed 
though, after a little pressing, that at that moment Tibb 
called out to her, " Kevenge thee of him !" to whom she 
answered, " Eevenge thou either of him or his !" on 
which he vanished away, and she saw him no more. 
She would not say ^vhat was the vengeance done, or if 
any. But if she was silent, and not prone to confes- 
sion, there were others, and those of her own blood, 
not so reticent. Elizabeth Device her daughter, and 
Alison and James and Jennet Device, her grandchil- 
dren, testified against her and each other in a wonderful 



270 THE WITCHES OF ENGLAND. 

manner, and filled up all the blanks in the most masterly 
and graphic style. 

Alison said that her grandmother had seduced her 
to the service of the devil, by giving her a great black 
dog as her imp or spirit, with which dog she had lamed 
one John Law, a petit chapman or pedlar, as he was 
going through Colnefield with his pack at his back. 
Alison wanted to buy pins of him, but John Law re- 
fused to loose his pack or sell them to her ; so Alison 
in a rage called for her black dog, to see if revenge 
could not do what fair words had failed in. When 
the black dog came he said, " What wouldst thou have 
me to do with yonder man ? " To whom she answered, 
" What canst thou do at him ?" and the dog answered 
again, " I can lame him." " Lame him," says Alison 
Device ; and before the pedlar went forty yards he fell 
lame. When questioned, he, on his side, said, that as 
he was going through Colnefield he met a big black 
dog with very fearful fiery eyes, great teeth, and a 
terrible countenance, which looked at him steadily 
then passed away ; and immediately after he was be- 
witched into lameness and deformity. And this took 
place after having met Alison Device and refused 
to sell her any pins. Then Alison fell to weeping and 
praying, beseeching God and that worshipful company 
to pardon her sins. She said further that her grand- 
mother had bewitched John Nutter's cow to death, and 
Richard Baldwin's woman-child on account of the 
quarrel before reported, saying that she would pray 
for Baldwin himself, " both still and loud," and that 
she was always after some matter of devilry and en- 
chantment, if not for the bad of others then for the 
good of herself. For once, Alison got a piggin full of 
blue milk by begging, and when she came to look into 



THE WITCHES OF LANCASHIEE. 271 

it, she found a quarter of a pound of butter there, 
which was not there before, and which she verily 
believed old Mother Demdike had procured by her 
enchantments. Then Alison turned against the rival 
Hec9t,e, Anne Whittle, alias Chattox, between whom 
and her family raged a deadly feud with Mother 
Demdike and her family ; accusing her of having be- 
witched her father, John Device, to death, because he 
had neglected to pay her the yearly tax of an aghen 
dole (eight pounds) of meal, which he had covenanted 
to give her on consideration that she would not harm 
him. ' For they had been robbed, these poor peo|)le, of 
a quarter of a peck of cut oatmeal and linens worth 
some twenty shillings, and they had found a coif and 
band belonging to them on Anne Whittle's daughter ; 
so John Device was afraid that old Chattox would do 
them some grievous injury by her sorceries if they 
cried out about it, therefore made that covenant for 
the aghen dole of meal, the non-payment of which 
for one year set Chattox free from her side of the 
bargain and cost John's life. She said, too, that 
Chattox had bewitched sundry persons and cattle, 
killing John Nutter's cow because he, John Nutter, had 
kicked over her canfull of milk, misliking her devilish 
way of placing two sticks across it ; and slaying Anne 
Nutter because she laughed and mocked at her ; slaying 
John Morris' child, too, by a picture of clay — with other 
misdeeds to be hereafter verified and substantiated. 
So Alison Device was hanged, weeping bitterly, and 
very penitent. 

James Device, her brother, testified to meeting a 
brown dog coming from his grandmother's about a 
month ago, and to hearing a noise as of a number of 
children shrieking and crying, *' near daylight gate.'' 



272 THE WITCHES OP ENGLAND. 

Another time he heard a foul yelling as of a multitude 
of cats, and soon after this there came into his bed a 
thing like a cat or a hare, and coloured black, which 
lay heavily on him for about an hour. He said that 
his sister Alison had bewitched Bullock's child, and 
that old Mother Chattox had dug up three skulls, and 
taken out eight teeth, four of which she kept for her- 
self and gave four to Mother Demdike ; and that 
Demdike had made a picture of clay of Anne Nutter, 
and had burned it, by which the said Anne had been 
bewitched to death. Also she had bewitched to death 
one Mitton, because he would not giYe her a penny ; 
wath other iniquities of the same sort. He said that 
his mother, Elizabeth Device, had a spirit like a brown 
dog called Ball, and that they all met at Malking 
Tower ; all the witches of Pendle — and they were not 
a few — going out in their own shapes, and finding foals 
of different colours ready for their riding when they 
got out: Jennet Preston was the last: when they all 
vanished. He then confessed, for his own part, that his 
grandmother Demdike told him not to eat the com- 
munion bread one day when he went to church, but to 
give it to the first thing he met on the road on his way 
homewards. He did not obey her, but ate the bread 
as a good Christian should ; and on the way he met 
with a thing like a hare which asked him for the 
bread ; but he said he had not got it ; whereupon the 
hare got very angry and threatened to tear him in 
pieces, but James " sained " himself, and the devil 
vanished. This, repeated in various forms, was about 
the pith of what James Device confessed, his confes- 
sion not including any remarkable betrayal of himself, 
or admission of any practical and positive evil. His 
young sister Jennet, a little lassie of nine, supplied the 



THE WITCHES OF LANCASHIRE. 273 

deficiencies. She had evidently been suborned, says 
Wright, and gave evidence enough to have hanged haK 
Lancashire. She said that James had sold himself to 
the devil, and that his spirit was a black dog called 
Dandy, by whom he had bewitched many people to 
death ; and she confirmed what he had said of Jennet 
Preston's spirit, which was a white foal with a black 
spot in its forehead. And then she said that she had 
seen the witches' meetings, but had taken no part in 
them ; and that on Good Friday they had all dined off a 
roasted wether which James had stolen from Christian 
Swyers ; and that John Bulcocke turned the spit. She 
said that her mother Elizabeth had taught her two 
prayers, the one to get drink and the other to cure 
the bewitched. The one to get drink was a very short 
one, simply — " Crucifixus, hoc signum vitam eternam, 
Amen ;" but this would bring good drink into the house 
in a very strange manner. The other, the prayer to 
cure the bewitched, was longer : — 

" Vpon Good Friday, I wiU fast "wliile I may, 
Vntill I heare them knell, - 

Our Lord's owue Bell, 
Lord in his messe 
With his twelve Apostles good, 
"What hath he ia his hand ? 
Ligh in* Leath f wand : 
What hath he in his other hand ? 
Heauen's doore key. 
Open, open, Heauen doore keyes, 
Stock, steck, hell doore. 
Let Crizum X child 
Go to it Mother mild. 



* " Ligh in," perhaps lykinge, lusty, or craske. 

t " Leath," flexible. 

X The chrism was the white cloth placed over the brow of a newly- 
baptized child in the Koman Catholic service. When children died 
within the month they were called chrisoms. 

T 



274 THE WITCHES OF ENGLAND. ' 

What is yonder that casts a light so farrandly?* 

Mine owne deare Sone that's nail'd to the Tree, 

He is nail'd sore by the heart and hand. 

And holy harne Panne. f 

Well is that man 

That Fryday spell can, 

His Ohilde to learne 

A Crosse of Blewe, and another of Eed, 

As good Lord was to the Roode. 

Gabriel laid him downe to sleepe 

Vpon the grounde X of holy weepe ; 

Good Lord came walking by, 

Sleep'st thou, wak'st thou, Gabriel ? 

No, Lord, I am sted with stick and stake, 

That I can neither sleepe nor wake : 

Eise vp, Gabriel, and goe with me. 

The stick nor the stake shall neuer deere § thee, 

Sweete Jesus our Lorde. Amen." 

On such, conclusive testimony as this, and for such 
fearful crimes, James Device was condemned for " as 
dangerous and malicious a witch as ever lived in these 
parts of Lancashire, of his time, and spotted mth as 
much Innocent bloud as euer any witch of his yeares." 
Poor lad ! 

" Barbarous and inhumane Monster, beyond ex- 
ample ; so farre from sensible vnderstanding of thy 
owne miserie as to bring thy owne naturall children into 
mischiefe and bondage, and thyselfe to be a witnesse 
vpone the gallowes, to see thy owne children, by thy 
deuillish instructions, hatcht vp in villanie and witch- 
craft, to suffer with thee, euen in the beginning of their 
time, a shamefuU and untimely Death ! " These are 
the words which Thomas Potts addresses to Elizabeth 
Device, widow of John the bewitched, daughter to old 

* " Farrandly," fair, handsome. 

t " Harne panne," brain case, cranium. 

X Gethsemane. § " Deere," hurt. 



THE WITCHES OF LANCASHIRE:. ^75 

Demdikethe "rankest hag that ever troubled daylight," 
aud mother of Alison and James the confessing witches ; 
mother, also, of young Jennet of nine, their accuser 
and hers, by whose testimony she was mainly con- 
demned. Elizabeth was charged with having bewitched 
sundry people to death, by means and aid of her spirit, 
the brown dog Ball, spoken of by James ; also she had 
gone to the Sabbath held at Malking Tower, where 
they had assembled to consult how they could get old 
Mother Demdike, their leader, out of prison, by killing 
her gaoler and blowing up the castle, and where they 
had beef and bacon and roasted mutton — the mutton that 
same wether of Christopher Swyers' of Barley, which 
James had stolen and killed; with other things as 
damnable and insignificant. So Elizabeth Device, " this 
odious witch, who was branded with a preposterous 
marke in Nature even from her Birth, w^hich was her 
left Eye standing lower than the other, the one looking 
down the other looking up," was condemned to die 
because she was poor and ugly, and had a little lying 
jade for a daughter, who made up fine stories for the 
gentlefolks. 

Anne Whittle, alias Chattox, was next in influence, 
power, and age to Mother Demdike, and she began her 
confession by saying that old Demdike had originally 
seduced her by giving her the devil in the shape and 
proportion of a man, who got her, body and soul, and 
sucked on her left ribs, and was called Fancie. After- 
wards she had another spirit like a spotted bitch, 
called Tibbe, who gave them all to eat and to drink, 
and said they should have gold and silver as much as 
they wanted. But they never got the gold and silver 
at all, and what they ate and drank did not satisfy 
them. " This Anne Whittle, alias Chattox, was a very 



276 THE WITCHES OF ENGLAND. 

old withered, spent, decrepid creature, her Sight almost 
gone ; A dangerous Witch of very long continuance ; 
always opposite to old Demdike ; For whom the one 
fauoured the other hated deadly : and how they curse 
and accuse one an other in their Examinations may ap-* 
pear. In her Witchcraft always more ready to doe 
mischiefe to men's goods than themselves ; Her lippes 
ever chattering and talking ; but no man knew what. 
She lived in the Forrest of Pendle amongst this wicked 
Company of dangerous Witches. Yet in her Examina-» 
tion and Confession she dealt always very plainely and 
truely ; for vpon a speciall occasion, being oftentimes 
examined in open Court, she was neuer found to vary, 
but alwayes to agree in one and the selfe same thing. 
I place her in order next to that wicked Firebrand of 
mischiefe, old Demdike, because from these two sprung 
all the rest in order ; and even the Children and Friendes 
of these two notorious Witches." 

Nothing special or very graphic was elicited about 
old Chattox. She had certainly bewitched to death 
sundry of the neighbourhood, lately deceased ; but then, 
they all did that ; and her devil, Fancie, came to her 
in various shapes — sometimes like a bear, gaping as 
though he would worry her, which was not a pleasant 
manner of fulfilling his contract — but generally as a 
man, in whom she took great delight. She confessed 
to a charm for blessing forespoken drink ; which she 
had chanted for John Moore's wife, she said, whose beer 
had been spoilt by Mother Demdike or some of her 
crew : — 

" Three Biters hast thou bitten, 
The Hart, ill Eye, Ul Tonge ; 
Three Bitter shall be thy boote, 
Father, Sonne, and Holy Ghost. 
a God's Name 



THE WITCHES OF LANCASHIEE. 277 

Fiue Paternosters, fiue Auies, 

and a Creede, 
For worship of fiue woundes 

of our Lord." 

Of course there was no help or hope for old Chattox 
if she said such wicked things as these. The righteous 
justice of England must be satisfied, and Anne Whittle 
was hung — one of the twelve who sorrowed the sunlight 
in Lancaster on that bloody assize. 

Her daughter, Ann Redfearne, was then taken, ac- 
cused of making pictures of day and other maleficent 
arts ; and she, too, was hanged ; and then well-born, 
well-bred, but unfortunate AJice Nutter — a gentle- 
woman of fortune living at Rough Lee, whose relatives 
were anxious for her death that they might come into 
some property, out of which she kept them while living, 
and between whom and Mr. Justice Nowell there was a 
long-standing grudge on the question of a boundary- 
line between their several properties — Alice Gutter, 
whom one would have thought far removed from any 
such possibiliiy, was accused by young Jennet of com- 
plicity and companionship, and put upon her trial 
with but a faint chance of escape behind her. For 
Elizabeth Device swore that she had joined with her 
and old Demdike in bewitching the man Mitton, be- 
cause of that twopence so fatally refused; and young 
Jennet swore that she was one of the party who went 
on many-coloured foals to the great witch meeting at 
Malking Tower; and so poor Alice Nutter, of Rough 
Lee, the well-born, well-bred gentlewoman, was hanged 
with the rest of that ragged crew ; and her relations 
stood in her place, quite satisfied with their dexterity. 

Then there was Katherine Hewitt, alicLS Mouldheels, 
accused by James Device, who seemed to think that if 



278 THE WITCHES OF ENGLAND. 

he had to be hanged for nothing he would be hanged in 
brave company, and, by sharing with as many as could 
be found, lessen the obloquy he could not escape ; and 
John Bulcocke, who turned the spit, and Jane his mother, 
for the same crimes and on the same testimony ; for the 
added crime, too, of helping in the bewitching of Master 
Leshe, about which nefarious deed other hands were 
also busy ; and Margaret Pearson, delated by Chattox 
as entertaining a man spirit cloven-footed, with \\ hom 
she went by a loophole into Dodson's stable, and sat 
aU night, on his mare* until it died. She was also 
accused by Jennet Booth, who went into her house 
and begged some milk for her child ; Margaret good- 
naturedly gave her some, and boiled it in a pan, but 
all her reward was, that Jennet accused her of witch- 
craft, for there was, said she, a toad, or something very 
like a toad, at the bottom of the pan when the milk 
was boiled, which Margaret took up with a pair of 
tongs and carried out of the house. Of course the toad 
was an imp, and Jennet Booth was quite right to repay 
an act of neighbourly generosity by accusation and 
slander. Margaret got off with standing in the pillory 
in open market, at four market towns on four market 
days, bearing a paper on her head setting forth her 
offence written in great letters, about which there could 
be no mistake; after which she was to confess, and 
afterwards be taken to prison, where she was to lie for 
a year, and then be only released when good and re- 
sponsible sureties would come forward to answer for 
her good behaviour. 

And there was Isabel Koby, who bewitched Peter 
Chaddock for jilting her, and in the spirit pinched and 
buffeted Jane Williams, so that she fell sick with 
the impression of a thumb and four fingers on her 



GRACE SOWERBUTS AND THE PRIESTS. 279 

thigh ; and Jennet Preston, she who had the white foal 
spirit, and who was afterwards hung at York for the 
murder of Master Thomas Lister — for Master Thomas 
in his last illness had been for ever crying out that 
Jennet Preston was lying on him, and when she was 
brought to see the body it gushed out fresh blood on 
her, which settled all doubts, if haply there had been 
any. So the famous trial of the Pendle Witches came 
to an end ; and of the twenty who were accused twelve 
were hanged while the rest escaped only for the present, 
many of them meeting with their doom a few years 
afterwards. 



GRACE SOWERBUTS AND THE PRIESTS.* 

At the same time and place, namely, " at the Assizes 
and Generall Gaole-delivery, holden at Lancaster, before 
Sir Edward Bromley," old Jennet Bierly, Ellen Bierly 
her daughter-in-law, and Jane Southworth, were accused 
by Grace Sowerbuts of bewitching her, so that her 
" bodie wasted and was consumed." Grace was four- 
teen years old — a very ripe time for bewitchment and 
possession — and her evidence ran that for some years 
past she had been fearfully tormented by these women, 
for that " they did violently draw her by the Haire of 
the Head, and layd her on the toppe of a Hay-mowe ;" 
and that Jennet Bierly appeared to her, first under her 
own shape and form, then as a black dog, and that as 
she was going over a style " she picked her off," but 
did not hui-t her much, for soon she was enabled to 
rouse herself up, and go on her way without any great 
damage. But often the women came to her as black 

* Potts's ' Discovery.' Webster's ' Displaying.' 



280 THE WITCHES OF ENGLAND. 

dogs, tempting her to cast herself into the water, or 
dragging her into the hay-loft where they covered her 
with hay on her head and with straw on her body, they, 
the black dogs, lying on the top of the straw till they 
took away all sense and feeling and she knew not 
where she was ; and oft they " carried her where they 
met black things like men that danced with them and 
did abuse their bodies, and they brought her to one 
Thomas Walsham's House in the Night, and there they 
killed his Child, by putting a Nail into the Navil, and 
after took it forth of the Grave, and did boil it, and 
eat some of it, and made Oyl of the bones ; and such 
like horrid lies," says honest Webster, indignantly. 
But fortunately for the three accused, Grace Sowerbuts 
was a popish pet, and suspected of decided papistical 
leanings ; and it was said that she was put up to all 
this by one Thomson, a popish priest, whose real name 
was Southworth, and who was a relation of old Sir 
John Southworth the great popish lord of the district ; 
to whom also Jane, one of the accused, was a near 
relative, but a hated enemy, as is often the case — Sir 
John having been known to ride miles round to avoid 
passing by her house. Jane Southworth was a Protestant 
and a convert, therefore likely to receive the protection 
of public opinion in those parts ; likely, too, to be 
doubly hated by her relative, first for herself, and 
secondly for her apostacy. So Grace Sowerbuts, an 
excitable young maid with but a slender regard to 
truth, was hit upon as the person best fitted to carry 
confusion into the enemy's camp, and it was resolved 
to prove her bewitched by the devilish arts of the two 
Bierlys and the popish recusant. But Sir Edward 
Bromley, who cared nothing for the protestations of the 
Pendle witches, and hung every one of them with 



GRACE SOWERBUTS AND THE PRIESTS. 281 

the most placid belief that he was doing a just and 
righteous work, gave a very different countenance to 
these Samesbury witches, all of whom would have been 
strung up like dogs had not the taint of papistry rested 
on Grace and her supporters. Leading her quietly to 
a denial of all she had asserted, Sii' Edward got her 
to confess that she was an impostor, and that every 
article of her accusation was a lie and a fallacy from 
beginning to end. She had never known nor seen any 
devils ; she had never been cast upon the henroof nor 
upon the hay-mow, but when she was found there she 
had gone of her own accord, and had covered herself 
with hay and straw to better prove the witches' despite 
against her ; she knew nothing of any child done to 
death by nails in its body ; and all that she had said 
about the bones, and the oil, and the tender flesh 
roasted at the fire, was as false as the rest. She had 
never been possessed, but had flung herself into these 
fits by her own will and independent power ; and what 
she did in them was a mere trick, which 'she could 
show their worships if they L'ked. In short, Grace 
Sowerbuts was forced to play the losing game in as 
masterly a manner as might be, and to own herself a 
cheat and an impostor while yet there was time for 
pardon. So the three Samesbury witches got off with 
a stern exhortation from the judge, who scarcely 
seemed to relish the release of even Protestant witches 
delated by papistical accusers. 



2S2 THE WITCHES OF ENGLAND. 



MARY AND HER CATS.* 

Mary Smith of Lynn, wife of Henry Smith, glover, 
was envious of her neighbours for their greater skill in 
making cheese : in the midst of her discontents, and 
while her mind, by its passion and evil thoughts, was in 
a fit condition for the devil to enter therein, Satan came 
to her as a black man, provoking her in a " lowe mur- 
muring and hissing Voyce," to forsake God and follow 
him ; to which she " condescended " in express terms. 
The devil then constantly appeared to her — sometimes 
as a mist ; sometimes as a ball of fire, with dispersed 
spangles of black ; but chiefly as a black man ; and some- 
times as a horned man, in which shape he came to her 
when in prison. Mary was a good hand at banning. She 
cursed John Orkton, and wished his fingers might rot 
off, and they did so ; she cursed Elizabeth Hancock, 
whom she accused of stealing her hen, wishing that the 
bones might stick in her throat, calling her a " prowde 
linny, prowde flurts, and shaking the hand bade her go 
in, for she should repent it ;" and incontinently Eliza- 
beth Hancock was taken with a pinching at the heart, 
and sudden weakness of all her body, and fainting fits, 
and racking pains, and madness, and raving, so that she 
tore the hair off her head as she tossed about distracted. 
Her father went to a wise man, who showed him Mary 
Smith's face in a glass, and bade him make a cake 
according to certain directions, which then he was to 
lay, half on Bessie's head and half on her back, and 
which would infallibly cure her, as she was not ill but be- 
witched. The father did so, and the daughter mended. 

* A ' Treatise of Witchcraft.' By Alexander Roberts, B.D., and 
Preacher of God's word at King's Linne in Norfolk. 1616. 



MARY AND HER CATS. 283 

Soon after this she married one James Scot, who, having 
a mortal hatred against Mary Smith, killed her cat, 
and thi-eatened that if his wife had any such fits as she 
had before they married, he would hang Mary Smith 
without mercy. At this Mary clapped her hands, and 
cried " They had killed her cat !" and the next day 
Elizabeth had the old nipping round her heart. So 
James went to Mary and said he would most certainly 
take her before the magistrates, if she did not amend 
her ways and heal his wife at once. Fortunately for 
Mary the woman got better, and the evil day was staved 
off for k time. To Cecily Balye, the maid-servant next 
door, she sent her cat to sit upon her breast when she 
slept, in revenge at the maid's sweeping a little dust 
awry ; and Cicely gave awful evidence how, through 
the thin partition which divided them, she used to see 
Mary Smith adoring her imp in a submissive manner — 
down on her knees, using strange gestures and uttering 
many murmuring and broken speeches ; and if she had 
listened, and looked more attentively, she might have 
seen and heard more : " but she was with the present 
spectacle so affrighted, that she hurried away in much 
feare and distemper." 

" The fourth endammaged by this Hagge," says 
Eoberts, was one Edmund Newton. He was a cheese- 
monger, like herself, and she thought he got the best 
of the trade ; so she, or her imp iq her likeness, came 
to him as he was lying in bed, and " whisked about his 
face a wet cloath of very loathsome savour; after 
which he did see one clothed in russet, with a little 
bush beard, who told hitn he was sent to looke vpon his 
sore legge, and would heale it." When Newton rose 
to take a fairer look, he saw that the russet man with a 
little bush beard had cloven feet, so refused his offer of 



284 THE WITCHES OF ENGLAND. 

chii'urgery. After this Mary was constantly sending her 
imps to him — a toad and crabs — which crawled about 
the house, " which was a shoppe planchered with 
boords, where his seruants (hee being a shoo maker) did 
worke ;" and one of them took the toad and flung it into 
the fire, during which time the witch was grievously 
tormented. So nothing would serve Edmund Newton's 
turn but he must " scratch her ;" yet when he strove to 
do so his nails turned like feathers, and he had no 
power over her, not even to raise the skin so much as a 
nine weeks' old babe might have done. At another 
time a great water-dog ran over his bed — the chamber 
door being shut — and he fell lame in his hand, and did 
not recover the use of it again. And then the law 
interfered, and Mary Smith was brought before the 
magistrates to answer to the charge of witchcraft — by 
them committed to the assizes — found guilty by judge 
and jury — and hanged by the neck till she was dead, as 
a warning to the time and her own kind. This murder 
was done 1616. 



KUTTERKIN.* 

The Earl and Countess of Kutland had shown much 
kindness to the widow Joan Flower, and her two 
daughters Philip and Margaret. Joan and Philip 
were employed at the castle pretty constantly as char- 
women, and Margaret was taken into the castle itself, 
"looking both to the poultrey abroad and the wash- 
house within doores," and evidently a great favourite 
with my Lady, who trusted her much. Their good 

* Tract. Printed at London by G. Eld for I. Barnes, dwelling in 
the long Walke, neare Christ-Church. 1619. 



KUTTEEKIN. 285 

fortune raised them up a host of enemies, as is always 
the case ; and backbiters went with tales to the Lord 
and Lady, saying, '-First, that loane Flower the 
Mother was a monstrous malicious woman, full of 
oathes, curses, and imprecations, irreligious, and, for 
any thing they saw by her, a plaine Atheist ; besides of 
late days her very countenance was estranged, her eyes 
were fiery and hollow, her speech fell and enuious, her 
demeanour strange and exoticke, and her conuersation 
sequestered ; so that the whole course of her life gaue 
great suspition that she was a notorious witch, yea 
some of her neighbours dared to affirme that she dealt 
with familiar Spirits, and terrified them all with curses 
and threatening of reuenge, if there were neuer so little 
cause of displeasure and vnkindnesse. Concerning 
Margaret, that she often resorted from the Castle to her 
Mother, bringing such Provision as they thought was 
vnbefitting for a seruant to purloyne, and coming at 
such unseasonable houres, that they could not but 
coniectm-e some mischeife between them, and that 
their extraordinary ryot and expences tended both to 
rob the Lady, and to maintaine certaine deboist and 
base company which frequented this loane Flower's 
house the mother, and especially her youngest Daughter. 
Concerning Philip that she was lewdly transported 
with the loue of one Th. Simpson, who presumed to say, 
that she had bewitched him : for he had no power to 
leaue, and was as he supposed maruellously altered both 
in minde and body, since her acquainted company : 
these complaints began many yeares before either their 
conuiction or publique apprehension : Notwithstanding 
such was the honour of this Earle and his Lady ; such 
was the cunning of this monstrous woman in her obser- 
uation towards them ; such was the subtilty of the 



286 THE WITCHES OF ENGLAND. 

Diuell to bring his purposes to passe ; such was the 
pleasure of God to make tryall of his seruants; and 
such was the effect of a damnable womans wit and 
malitious enuy, that all things were carried away in the 
smooth Channell of liking and good entertainment on 
euery side, untill the Earle by degrees conceiued some 
mislike against ; and so peraduenture estranged himself 
from that familiarity and accustomed conferences he was 
wont to haue with her ; untill one Peate offered her 
some wrong ; against whom she complained, but found 
that my Lord did affect her clamours and malicious 
information, vntill one Mr. Yauasor abandoned her com- 
pany, as either suspicious of her lewd life, or distasted 
with his oun misliking of such base and poore Creatures, 
whom nobody loued but the Earle's household ; vntill 
the Countesse misconceiuing of her daughter Margaret 
and discovering some vndecencies both in her life and 
neglect of ^ her businesse, discharged her from lying any 
more in the Castle, yet gave her 4:0s., a bolster, and a 
mattresse of wooU ; commanding her to go home vntill 
the slacknesse of her repayring to the Castle, as she 
was wont, did turne her loue and liking toward this 
honourable Earle and his family into hate and rancor ; 
wherevpon despighted to bee so neglected, and expro- 
bated by her neighbours for her Daughters casting out of 
doores, and other conceiued displeasures, she grew past 
all shame and womanhood, and many times cursed them 
all that were the cause of this discontentment, and 
made her so loathsome to her former familiar friends 
and beneficial acquaintance." 

Things being come to this pass, it was not difficult to 
persuade the Earl and his Countess that, when their 
eldest son Henry, Lord Koss, sickened very strangely, 
and after a while died, — when their second son Francis 



EUTTERKIN. 287 

was also tortured by a strange sickness — and the Lady 
Katherine tlieir daughter was in danger of her life 
*' throuo-h extreame maladies and vnusuall fits " — it was 
all done by Joan Flower's witchcraft, and that the 
quickest way out of their troubles was to arrest the 
widow and her two daughters and see what could be 
done with them, both by their own confessions and the 
neighbours' relations. They were arrested accordingly, 
and carried before the magistrates where witnesses 
were not awanting. The fii'st evidence given was that 
of Philip Flower, sister to Margaret, and daughter of 
poor old Joan. On the 4th of February she confessed 
that her mother and sister "maKced" the Earl of Kut- 
land, his countess, and their children, because they 
were put out of the Castle ; wherefore her sister Mar- 
garet, by desire of her mother, got Lord Henry's right- 
hand glove which she found on the rushes in the 
nm'sery, and delivered it to Joan, who presently rubbed 
it on the back of her spirit Rutterkin, bidding him 
" height and goe and doe some hurt to Henry Lord 
Eosse," then put it into boiling water, pricking it 
many times with a knife, and burying it in the yard 
with a wish that Lord Henry might never thrive. 
Whereupon he fell sick and shortly after died. She 
also said that she often saw the spirit Rutterkin 
leap on her sister Margaret's shoulder and suck her 
neck, and that her mother had often cursed the earl 
and his lady, and boiled feathers and blood together, 
" vsing many Deuillish speeches and strange gestures." 
On the 22nd of the same month Margaret was examined, 
and she also gave no trouble. She confessed that truly 
she had got Lord Henry's glove, and that her mother 
had done with it in all particulars of stroking Butter- 
kin's back, and putting it into boiling water, and prick- 



288 THE WITCHES OF ENGLAND. 

ing, and burying it, according to the words of Philip ; 
also that some two or three years ago she had found a 
glove of the Lord Francis', which her mother rubbed on 
Kutterkin the cat and bade him go upward, and which, 
by her incantations and sorceries, caused a grievous 
illness to light on the little nobleman. And she got a 
piece of Lady Katherine's handkercher, which her 
mother put into hot water, "and then taking it out 
rubbed it on Eutterkin, bidding him * flye and go ;' 
whereupon Eutterkin whined and cryed ' Mew,' " and 
the mother said he had no power over Lady Katherine 
to hurt her. A few days later both sisters were examined 
again, when Philip confessed that she had a spirit which 
sucked her in the form of a white rat, and which she 
had entertained for the space of two or three years, on 
condition that it should cause Thomas Simpson to love 
her ; and Margaret allowed that she had two spirits, 
one white, the other black-spotted, to whom she had 
given her soul, they covenanting to do all that she com- 
manded them. Then she rambled off into a wild state- 
ment of how on the thirtieth of January last, she, being 
in Lincoln gaol, four devils appeared to her at eleven or 
twelve o'clock at night ; the one stood at her bed's foot, 
and had a black head like an ape, and spake unto her ; 
but what she could not well remember ; at which she was 
very angry that he would not speak plainer and let her 
understand his meaning. She said that the other three 
were Eutterkin, Little Eobin, and Spirit, "but shee 
never mistrusted them nor suspected herselfe till then." 
This closed the examinations of the two younger women : 
for poor old Joan had died on her way to gaol " with a 
horrible excruciation of soul and body," and so an end 
was come to of her. But if there was nothing more to 
be got out of the Flower family, their neighbours were 



EUTTERKIN. 28d 

not backward to help them with a bad word, when 
handy. Anne Baker, evidently mad, Joan Willimot, 
and Ellen Greene, were brought to say their say in the 
face of the country and before the county justices. Joan 
Willimott gave evidence that Joan Flower had often- 
times complained to her of the unfriendly conduct of 
my Lord of Kutland, in turning her daughter out of 
the house, adding that though she could not have her 
will of my Lord himself, she had spied his son and 
stricken him to the heart — stricken him with a white 
spu'it, which yet could be cured if she so willed. Joan 
Willimott then " fyled " herself for a witch, saying that 
she had a spirit called Pretty, given to her by her master, 
WiUiam Berry of Langholme, in Eutlandshire, whom 
she had served three years. When he gave it to her, 
he bade her open her mouth and he would blow into 
her a Fairy which should do her good ; and she did so ; 
and he blew into her mouth, and presently after there 
came out of her mouth a spirit which stood upon the 
gTOund in the shape and form of a woman, and asked of 
her her soul — which Joan granted — being willed thereto 
by her master. She did not own to having ever hurt 
anyone, but said instead that she had helped divers who 
had been stricken and forespoken, and that the use she 
made of her spirit was to know how those did whom she 
had undertaken to mend. She said, too, that her spirit 
came to her last night, in the form of a woman mum- 
bling something, but she could not understand what; 
and that she was not asleep, but was as waking as at 
this present. On another occasion she fyled two of her 
neighbom-s, saying how Cooke's wife had said that John 
Patchet might have had his child alive, if he had asked 
for it, insinuating that Cooke's wife had forespoken the 
said child, and that Patchet's wife had an evil thing 

u 



290 THE WITCHES OF Ei^GLAKD. 

within her, and she knew it by her girdle. Also that 
Gamaliel Greete, of Waltham, had a spirit like a white 
mouse put into him in his swearing, and that those on 
whom he looked with intent to hurt were hurt; and 
that he had a mark on his left arm, which had been 
cut away ; and that her own spirit had told her all this. 
And that she, and Joan, and Margaret Flower, had met 
in Blackborrow hill, the week before Joan's apprehen- 
sion ; and that she had seen in Joan's house two spirits, 
the one like a rat, and the other like an owl, and that 
one of them had sucked under her left ear — as she 
thought; and that Joan Flower said her spirits had 
informed her she should be neither burnt nor hanged. 

On this same day Ellen Green gave in her account, 
saying that some six years since Joan Willimott had 
come to her in the wolds, persuading her to forsake 
God and betake her to the devil, and she would give 
her two spirits : which this Examinate consented unto. 
Whereupon Joan called two spirits, one in the likeness 
of a " kittin," the other of a " moldiwarp," the first of 
which was called "pusse," and the second "hiffe hiffe ;" 
and they leapt on her shoulder, and sucked her. And 
that she sent the kittin to a baker in the town who had 
offended her, but whose name she had forgotten, and 
bade it bewitch him to death ; and the moldiwarp she 
despatched to Ann Dawse, for the same purpose and the 
same offence. And of other deaths by the like means 
did Ellen Green accuse herself; adding that Joan 
Willimott's spirit was in the form of a white dog, and 
that she had seen it suck her in Barley harvest last. 

And then came mad Ann Baker, who started with 
informing her audience that there are four colours of 
planets, black, yellow, green, and blue, and that black 
is always death, and that she saw the blue planet strike 



KUTTEEKIN. 291 

William Fairbairn's son, but when William Fairbairn 
did beat her and break her head, his said son Thomas 
did mend. Yet she sent not the blue planet. She said 
that she saw a hand api^ear to her, and a Yoice in the 
air say, " Anne Baker, save thyself, for to-morrow thou 
and thy maister must be slain ;" and that the next day, 
as she and her master were together in a cart, suddenly 
she saw a flash of fire, but when she said her prayers 
the fire went away, and then a crow came and pecked 
her clothes ; whereat she said her prayers again, and 
bade the crow go to whom it was sent, " and the Crow 
went vnto her Maister and did beat him to death, and 
shee with her prayers recouered him to life : but he 
was sick a fortnight after and saith that if shee had not 
had more knowledge than her Maister, both he and 
shee and all the Cattell had beene slaine." The rest of 
her confessions turned upon the histories of the various 
deaths and bewitchments with which she was charged, 
and most of which she denied ; sajdng, that she had 
merely lain Ann Stannidge's child on her skirt, but had 
done it no harm, and that when the mother had burnt 
the Kttle one's hair and nail parings, and she, Ann 
Baker, had gone in to the house in gTeat pain and 
suffering, she knew nothing whatever of this burning, 
but that she was sick and knew not whither she went. 
Of the Eutland case all she knew was, that when she 
came back from ^Northamptonshire, whither she had 
gone three years ago, two good wives had told her that 
my young Lord Henry was dead, and that there was a 
glove of the said Lord buried undergTound, and that 
" as his glove did rot and wast, so did the liver of the 
young Lord rot and wast ;" and that her spirit was a 
good spiiit and in the shape of a white dog. The tract 
does not inform us what was done with these three 



292 THE WITCHES OF ENGLAND. 

wretched women. The two Flowers were hanged, the 
old mother having died as I have said: but whether 
the untimely death of a sickly lad was revenged by 
more innocent blood than this remains unknown. The 
death- sacrifices of savages, the witches of Africa, and 
the Ked Indian "Medicine-men," are not so very far 
removed from our own forefathers that we should quite 
ignore the likeness between them and the recent past 
at home. 



THE BOY OF BILSTON.* 

The war between Papists and Protestants still went 
on, and the favourite weapon with each was the old 
one of Possession, and its result — exorcism. The patient 
in the present case was William Perry, a youth of 
twelve, generally called the Boy of Bilston, whom Joan 
Cock bewitched for the better showing forth the glory 
of God and the Church, and to the hurt of her own soul 
and body. One day William Perry met old Joan as he 
returned from school, and forbore to give her good time 
of the day, as a well-bred youth should : whereat the 
old woman was angry, and called him "a foul thing," 
saying "that it had been better for him if he had 
saluted her." At which words the boy felt something 
prick him to his heart, and when he came home fell 
into fits of the most demoniac kind. The parents seeing 
his extremity went cap and knee to some Catholics in 
the neighbourhood, and they, after long solicitation, 
proceeded to the exorcising. They poured holy water 
and holy oil in goodly quantity upon him, and left 
supplies of both to be used in their absence. The devil 

* Wright and Hutchinson. 



THE BOY OF BILSTON. 293 

was sore afflicted by tlie holy water and the holy oil, 
and made the boy cast up pins, and wool, and knotted 
thread, and rosemary leaves, and walnut leaves, and 
feathers, and "thrums." For there were three devils 
inside him, he said, and they had uncommon power. 
On Corpus Christi day he brought up eleven pins, and 
a knitting needle folded in divers folds ; all after ex- 
treme fits and heavings ; and then the spirit told him 
not to listen to the exorcising priest — which was a great 
compliment from the devil — and that the witch had said 
she would make an end of him. "VNTien told to pray for 
the witch, the boy and the devils were fm-ious ; but after- 
wards calmed down on the exorciser getting extra power ; 
and then the boy prayed his prayer and gTew better. 
Then he demanded that everything about him should 
be blessed, and that all his family should be Catholics ; 
but when any Puritans came in, he said the devil 
assaulted him in the shape of a black bird. So it was 
a vastly pretty little case of witness and conversion, and 
the Catholics made the most of it. Joan must now be 
arrested ; for the fits continued, and the young gentle- 
man was not to be pacified with anything short of the 
witch's blood. When brought into his presence the boy 
had extreme fits, crying out : " * Now she comes, now my 
Tormentor comes!' writhing and tearing and twisting 
himseK into such Shapes as bred at once Amazement 
and Pity in the Spectators :" so the old woman was 
sent to Stafford gaol, but, because this was a Popish 
matter, acquitted without long delay. Then the Bishop 
of Coventry and Lichfield, desirous of testing the matter, 
and unwilling that the Catholics should take any glory 
to themselves for their holy oils and their anointings 
which were said to have calmed the most " sounding 
fits," took William Perry home to the Castle, and there 



294 THE WITCHES OF ENGLAND. 

had liim watched : and watched so well that certain 
dirty tricks not to be spoken of here were found out, and 
the physiological part of the " miracle " set at rest. But 
before this the Bishop tried the devils with Greek. For 
they could not abide the iirst verse of the first chapter 
of St. John, and always fell on the boy with fury when 
it was read ; so, said the Bishop, whose wits sectarian 
hatred had sharpened — one bigotry driving out another 
— " Boy, it is either thou or the Devil that abhorrest 
those Words of the Gospel : and if it be the Devil (he 
being so ancient a Scholar, as of almost six Thousand 
Years' standing) knows, and understands all Languages ; 
so that he cannot but know when I recite the same 
sentence out of the Greek Text : But if it be thyself 
then art thou an execrable Wretch, who plays the 
Devil's part ; wherefore look to thyself, for now thou art 
to be put to Trial, and mark diligently, whether it be 
that same Scripture which shall be read." Then was 
read the twelfth verse of the first chapter, at which 
William, supposing it to be the abhorred first, fell into 
his customary fits ; but when, immediately after, the first 
verse was read, he, supposing it was another, was not 
moved at all. By which means this part of the fraud 
was discovered also ; and when, moving his eyes and 
staring about him wildly, he declared that he saw mice 
runniug round the bed, no one gave any credit to his 
words. When the whole thing was blown to the winds, 
and the Greek test had failed, and the dirty tricks had 
been found out, the boy made a pretended confession, 
which was evidently no more true than anything else 
had been. He said that one day as he was coming 
home, an old man called Thomas, with gray hair and a 
cradle of glasses on his shoulders, met him, and after 
asking him if he went to school and how he liked it, told 



MR. FAIRFAX'S FOLLY. 295 

him that he could teach him a few tricks which should 
prevent his going to school any more, and would instead 
lead all people to pity and lament him, holding him to be 
bewitched. But it was shrewdly suspected that the old 
man Thomas, with his gray hair and cradle of glass, was 
but a pleasant phantasy of the imagination ; and that 
the real secret had lain with the Catholic priests, who, 
finding the boy apt and handy, thought they could 
make good capital out of him for their Church, and put 
liim forth as a witness for its divine power and holy 
office, seeing that it could dispossess the demoniac and 
drive away evil spu^its. Fortunately they reckoned 
without their host — the host of " reformed " bigotry and 
hatred : for we need not congratulate om^selves on any 
clearsightedness or common sense in the matter. Had 
the Boy of Bilston been a sound Protestant, he would 
have been held as indubitably Possessed by the Devil, 
and some poor wretch would have been found as a con- 
venient sacrifice to the stupidity of that devil. 



MR. FAIRFAX'S FOLLY. 

The next year saw Mr. Fairfax of Knaresborough— 
Edward Fairfax, the scholar, the gentleman, the classic, 
our best translator of Tasso, graceful, learned, elegant 
Edward Fairfax — pm^suing with incredible zeal six of 
his neighbours for supposed witchcraft on his children. 
The children had fits and were afflicted with imps, so 
Edward Fairfax thought his paternal duty consisted in 
getting the lives of six supposed witches, the hanging 
of whom would infallibly cure his children, and drive 
away the evil spirits possessing them. But fortunately 
for the accused the judge had more sense than Mr. 



296 THE WITCHES OF ENGLAND. 

Fairfax ; and, though the women were sent back again 
for another assize, suffered them to escape with only the 
terror of death twice repeated. It is strange to find 
ourselves face to face vnth such stupid bigotry as this in 
a man so estimable and so refined as Fairfax. 



THE COUNTESS.* 

Lady Jennings and her young daughter Elizabeth, of 
thirteen, lived at Thistle wood in the year 1622. One 
day an old woman, coming no one knew whence, 
perhaps from the bowels of the earth, appeared suddenly 
before the girl, demanding a pin. The child was fright- 
ened, and had fits soon after — fits of the usual hysteric 
character, but quite sufficiently severe to alarm Lady 
Jennings. A doctor was sent for ; but also, as well as 
the doctor, came a clever shrewd woman called Mar- 
garet Kussill, or " Countess," a bit of a doctress in her 
way, perhaps a bit of a white witch too, who thought she 
could do the afflicted child some good, and had beside a 
love of putting her fingers into everybody's pie. At 
the end of one of her fits the child began to cry out 
wildly, then mentioned Margaret and three others as 
the persons who had bewitched her. And then she 
went on, incoherently, " These have bewitched all my 
mother's children — east, west, north, and south all 
these lie — all these are witches. Set up a great sprig of 
rosemary in the middle of the house — ^I have sent this 
child to speak, to show all these witches — Put Countess 
in prison, this child mil be well — If she had been long 
ago, all together had been alive — Them she bewitched 
with a cat-stick — Till then I shall be in gTcat pain — 

* Wright, quoting Lord Londesborough's MSS. 



THE COUNTESS. 297 

Till tlien, by fits, I shall be in gi-eat extremity — They 
died in great misery." No mother's heart could resist 
the appeal contained in these wild words ; poor Countess 
was arrested, and taken before Mr. Slingsby, a magis- 
trate. When there she said, though heaven knows 
what prompted her to tell such falsehoods, " Yesterday 
she went to Mrs. Dromondbye in Black-and- White 
Coui't, in the Old Baylye ; and told her that the Lady 
Jennings had a daughter strangely sicke, whereuppon 
the said Dromondbye wished her to goe to inquire at 
Clerkenwell for a minister's wiffe that cold helpe people 
that were sicke, but she must not aske for a witch or a 
cunning woman, but for one that is a phisition woman ; 
and then this examinate found her and a woman sitting 
with her and told her in what case the child was, and 
shee said shee wold come this day, but shee ought her 
noe service, and said shee had bin there before and left 
receiptes there, but the child did not take them. And 
she said further that there was two children that her 
Lady Jennins had by this husband, that were be- 
witched and dead, for there was controversie betweene 
two howses, and that as long as they dwelt there, they 
cold not prosper, and that there shold be noe blessing in 
that howse by this man." When asked what was this 
*' difference," she answered, " Between the house of 
God and the house of the world :" but when told that 
this was no answer, and that she must explain herself 
more clearly, she said that " she meant the apothecary 
Higgins and my Lady Jennings." *' And shee further 
confessed that above a moneth agoe she went to Mrs. 
Saxey in Gunpouder AUey, who was forespoken herself, 
and that had a boke that cold helpe all those that were 
forespoken, and that shee wold come and shewe her the 
booke and help her under God. And further said to 



298 THE WITCHES OF ENGLAND. 

this examinate, that none but a seminary priest cold 
cure her." So here again we have the constantly re- 
curring element of sectarianism, without which, indeed, 
we should be at a loss how to understand much that 
meets us. " Countess " was committed to Newgate, and 
the bewitched child cried out more and more against 
her, making new revelations with each fit, when the 
pitiful farce was brought to a close by the minister's 
wife, Mrs. Goodcole, who, when confronted with Coun- 
tess, denied point blank the more important parts of her 
evidence. And then all this evil — this much ado about 
nothing — was found to have arisen from a private 
quan^el ; and when Dr. Napier was sent for, he un- 
bewitched the possessed child with some very simple 
remedies, and the great balloon bm^st and fell to the 
gTound in hopeless collapse. 



THE TWO VOICES.* 

On the 13th of August, 1626, Edward Bull and Joan 
Greedie were indicted at Taunton for bewitching Edward 
Dinham. Dinham was a capital ventriloquist, and could 
speak in two different voices beside his own, as well as 
counterfeit fits and play the possessed to the life. One 
of his two feigned voices was pleasant and shriU, and 
belonged to a good spirit ; the other was deadly and 
hollow, and belonged to an evil spirit. And when he 
spoke his lips did not move, and he lay as if in a 
trance, and both he and the voices said that he was 
bewitched, and all the people believed them. And the 
good voice asked who had bewitched him, to which the 
bad replied, " A woman in greene cloathes and a blacke 

'^ Wright. 



THE TWO VOICES. 299' 

liatt with long- poll, and a man in gray srite, with 
blewe stockings." When asked where she was now, the 
bad spirit answered, " At her own house," while he was 
at a tavern in " Yeohull," Ireland. Then after some 
pressing the bad spirit said that the name of one was 
" Johan," of the other " Edward ;" and after more 
pressing still, confessed to the surnames, " Greedie and 
Bull." So in consequence of this reliable report mes- 
sengers were sent off to find old Joan, and when found 
arrest her. Then the good spirit, who played the part 
of a benevolent Pry, asked how these two became 
witches, to which the bad answered, "By descent." 
"^ut how by descent?" says the good spirit, anxious 
not to leave a lock unfastened or a problem unsolved. 
" From the grandmother to the mother, and from the 
mother to the children," says the bad. "But howe 
were they soe ?" says Goody. " They were bound to 
us and we to them," answered the bad, with more words 
than explanation. 

Good Spirit — " Lett me see the bond." 

Bad Spirit—" Thou shalt not." 

Good Spirit — " Lett me see it, and if I like it I will 
scale it alsoe." 

Bad Spu'it — " Thou shalt, if thou wilt not reveale the 
contentes thereof." 

Good Spirit—" I will not." 

At this point it was pretended that a spectral bond 
was passed from the bad to the good ghost ; and then 
broke out the " sweet and shrill voice " of the ven- 
triloquist with " Alas ! oh, pittifull, pittifuU, pittifuU ! 
What 1 eight scales ? bloody scales ! four dead and four 
alive ; oh, miserable !" Then came in the man's 
natm^al voice, addressing the spirit: "Come, come, 
prithee tell me why did they bewitch me ?" Bad Spirit 



300 THE WITCHES OF ENGLAND. 

— " Because thou didst call Johan Greedie witche." 
Man — "Why, is shee not a witche?" Bad Spirit — 
" Yes, but thou shouldst not have said so," which was 
a fine bit of worldly policy in the bad ghost. Good 
Spirit— "But why did Bull bewitche him?" Bad— 
" Because Greedie was not strong enough." 

On this evidence further messengers were sent off for 
Edward Bull, but whether to YeohuU or not I cannot 
say. They were disappointed for the moment, for Bull 
had run away ; and then, in a future interview, and to 
fill up the time until braver sport should be provided, the 
bad and the good spirits had a wrestle for Dinham's 
soul, which, judging from what evidence we have had 
left us, was not worth the struggle, and would be no 
great gain to either party. In the struggle the good 
spirit speaks Latin. " Laudes, lau.des, laudes," says he, 
being well educated and not ashamed. But the bad 
was, as befitted his nature, churlish and ill-taught, and 
did not understand his opponent's talk, but translated it 
into "ladies," which made a laugh among them all. 
Then they struggled for the Prayer Book; but here 
again the bad was discomfited, and the man kept the 
talisman ; after which the good spirit made " the sweet- 
est musicke that ever was heard." When they set out 
to catch Bull again, they found him in bed ; and 
now, when both the Possessors were safe, Dinham was 
freed and his voices dumb for ever. Perhaps he had 
caught cold. I do not know the fate of these poor 
wretches, but I should not think it doubtful. 

In 1627 Mr. Kothnell exorcised an evil spirit out of 
one John Fox ; but notwithstanding this John con- 
tinued dumb for three years after ; which was rather an 
unfortunate comment on the exorcism, but not at all 
likely to open the eyes of any one willing to be blind. 



801 

THE SECOXD CUESE OF PENDLE.* 

We have seen what Lancashire was in sixteen hun- 
dred and twelve : it was not much better twenty-one 
years later ; for in 1633 we find that Pendle Forest was 
still of bad repute, and that traditions of old Demdike 
and her rival Mother Chattox yet floated round the 
Malkin Tower, and hid, spectre-like, in the rough and 
desert places of the barren waste. Who ever knew of 
evil example waiting for its followers ? What Mothers 
Demdike and Chattox had done in their day, their 
children and grandchildren were ready to do after them. 
The world will never lose its old women, "toothless, 
blear-eyed, foul-tongued, malicious," for whom love died 
out and sin came in long years ago ; and Edmund 
Eobinson, son of Ned of Koughs, was one of those 
specially appointed by Providence to bring such evil- 
doers to their reward. 

Edmund, then about eleven years of age (how many 
of these sad stories come from children and young crea- 
tures !), lived with his father in Pendle Forest ; lived 
poorly enough, but not without some kind of romance 
and interest ; for on the 10th day of February, 1 633, 
he made the following deposition : — 

"Who upon oath informeth, being examined con- 
cerning the great meeting of the Witches of Pendle, 
saith that upon All Saints' Day last past, he, this In- 
former, being with one Henry Parker, a near-door 
neighbour to him in Wheatley-lane, desired the said 
Parker to give him leave to gather some Bulloes, which 
he did. In gathering whereof he saw two Grayhounds, 
viz., a black and a brown one, come running over the 
next field towards him, he verily thinking the one of 
them to be Mr. Nutter's, and the other to be Mr. Kobin- 
* Webster. Wright. Harleian MSS. 



302 THE WITCHES OF ENGLAND. 

son's, the said Gentlemen then having such like. And 
saith, the said Grayhounds came to him, and fa^vned on 
him, they having about their necks either of them a 
Collar, unto each of which was tied a String; which 
Collars (as this Informer affirmeth) did shine like Gold. 
And he thinking that some either of Mr. Nutters or 
Mr. Robinsons Family should have followed them ; yet 
seeing no body to follow them, he took the same Gray- 
hounds, thinking to course with them. And presently 
a Hare did rise very near before him. At the sight 
whereof he cried Loo, Loo, Loo : but the Doggs would 
not run. Whereupon he being very angry took them, 
and with the strings that were about their Collars, tied 
them to a little bush at the next hedge, and with a 
switch that he had in his hand he beat them. And in 
stead of the black Grayhound, one Dickensons Wife 
stood up, a Neighbour, whom this Informer knoweth. 
And in stead of the brown one a little Boy, whom this 
Informer knoweth not. At which sight this Informer, 
being afraid, endeavoured to run away ; but being 
stayed by the Woman, (viz.) by Dickensons Wife, she 
put her hand into her pocket, and pulled forth a piece 
of Silver much like to a fair shilling, and offered to give 
him it to hold his tongue and not to tell ; which he 
refused, saying, Nay, thou art a Witch. Whereupon 
she put her hand into her pocket again, and pulled out 
a thing like unto a Bridle that gingled, which she put 
on the little Boyes head ; which said Boy stood up in 
the likeness of a white Horse, and in the brown Gray- 
hounds stead. Then immediately Dickensons wife 
took this Informer before her upon the said Horse and 
carried him to a new house caUed Hoarstones, being 
about a quarter of a mile off. Whither when they were 
come, there were divers persons about the door, and he 



THE SECOND CURSE OF PENDLE. 303 

saw divers otliers riding on Horses of several colom-s 
towards tlie said House, who tied their Horses to a 
hedge near to the said House. Which persons went 
into the said House, to the number of tlu-ee score or 
thereabouts, as this Informer thinketh, where they had 
a fire, and meat roasting in the said House, whereof a 
young Woman (whom this Informer knoweth not) gave 
him Flesh and Bread upon a Trencher, and Drink in a 
Glass, which after the first taste he refused, and would 
have no more, but said it was nought. 

" And presently after, seeing divers of the said com- 
pany "going into a Barn near adjoining, he followed 
after them, and there he saw six of them kneeling, and 
puUing aU six of them six several ropes, which were 
fastened or tied to the top of the Barn. Presently after 
which pulling, there came into this Informers sight 
flesh smoaking, butter in lumps, and milk as it were 
syleing (straining) from the said ropes. AU which fell 
into basons which were placed under the said ropes. 
And after that these six had done, there came other 
six which did so likewise. And during all the time of 
their several pulling, they made such ugly faces as 
scared this Informer, so that he was glad to run out and 
steal homew^ards ; who immediately finding they wanted 
one that was in their company, some of them ran after 
him near to a place in a Highway called Boggard-hole, 
where he, this Informer, met two Horsemen. At the 
sight whereof the said persons left following of him. 
But the foremost of those persons that followed bim he 
knew to be one Loinds Wife ; which said Wife, together 
with one Dickensons Wife, and one Jennet Davies, he 
hath seen since at several times in a Croft or Close 
adjoining to his Fathers house, which put him in great 
fear. And further this Informer saith, upon Thursday 



304 THE WITCHES OF ENGLAND. 

after New Years Day last past he saw the said Loinds 
Wife sitting upon a cross piece of wood being within the 
Chimney of his Fathers dwelling-house ; and he, 
calling to her, said. Come down, thou Loynds Wife. 
And immediately the said Loynds Wife went up out of 
his sight. And further this Informer saith, that after 
he was come from the company aforesaid to his Fathers 
house, being towards evening, his Father bad him go 
and fetch home two kine to seal (tie up). And in the 
way, in a field called the Filers, he chanced to hap 
upon a Boy, who began to quarrel with him, and they 
fought together, till the Informer had his ears and face 
made up very bloody by fighting, and looking down he 
saw the Boy had a cloven foot. At which sight, he 
being greatly affrighted, came away from him to seek 
the kine. And in the way he saw a light like to a 
Lanthorn, towards which he made haste, supposing it to 
be carried by some of Mr.' Eobinson's people ; but when 
he came to the place he only found a Woman standing 
-on a Bridge, whom, when he saw, he knew her to be 
Loinds Wife, and knowing her he turned back again ; 
and immediately he met the aforesaid Boy, from whom 
he offered to run, which Boy gave him a blow on the 
back that made him to cry. And farther this Informer 
saith, that when he was in the Barn, he saw three 
Women take six Pictures from off the beam, in which 
Pictures were many Thorns or such like things sticked 
in them, and that Loynds Wife took one of the Pictm^es 
down, but the other two Women that took down the re^ 
he knoweth not. And being further asked what persons 
were at the aforesaid meeting, he nominated these 
persons following." Here follows a list of names of no 
interest to the modern reader. At the end of this 
deposition is one from the Father. 



THE SECOND CURSE OF PENDLE. 305 

" Edmund Eobinson of Pendle, Father of the afore- 
said Edmund Eobinson, Mason, informeth, 

" That upon All Saints-day last he sent his Son the 
aforesaid Informer, to fetch home two kine to seal, and 
saith that his Son, staying longer than he thought he 
should have done, he went to seek him, and in seeking of 
him heard him cry pitifully, and found him so affrighted 
and distracted that he neither knew his Father nor did 
know w^here he w^as, and so continued very near a 
quarter of an hour before he came to himself. And 
he told this Informer his Father all the particular pas- 
sages that are before declared in the said Eobinson his 
Son's Information. 

(Signed) " Eichaed Shuttlewoeth. 
" John Staekey." 



Who would dare to doubt such testimony as this? 
Here was another child of God grievously mishandled ; 
and what might not be done to the servants of the 
devil who had so evilly intreated him ? And was not 
Edmund Eobinson evidently raised up and directed by 
God to be the scourge of all witches, and the great 
discoverer of their naughty pranks ? So the lad was 
elevated to the post of witch-finder, and was taken about 
from church to church — accusing any who might strike 
his fancy or his fears, and sending them off to prison at 
the impulse of his childish will. Among other places 
he was brought to the parish church of Kildwick, where 
Webster was then cm^ate. It was during the afternoon 
service, and the lad was put upon a stall to look the 
better about him, and discern the witches more clearly. 
After service Webster went to him and foimd him with 
" two very unlikely persons that did conduct him and 

X 



306 THE WITCHES OF ENGLAND. 

manage the business :" the curate of Kildwick would 
have drawn him aside, but the men would not suifer this. 
Then said Webster, " * Good boy, tell me truly and in 
earnest, didst thou hear and see such strange things of 
the meeting of witches as is reported by many that thou 
dost relate, or did some person teach thee to say such 
things of thyself?' But the two men, not giving the 
boy leave to answer, did pluck him from me, and said 
he had been examined by two able Justices of the Peace, 
and they did never ask him such a question ; to whom 
I replied, * The persons accused had therefore the 
more wrong.'" So Webster got nothing by this, and 
the boy was not damaged nor his credit shaken. Very 
many persons were arrested on this young imp's accu- 
sations, beside those seventeen whom he had seen 
"syleing" butter and bacon from witch-ropes in the 
magic barn. And among the rest Jennet Device, (was 
she our old acquaintance of perjured memory?) who 
was charged with killing Isabelle, the wife of William 
Nutter ; and Mary Spencer, who was in imminent danger 
for having " caused a pale or cellocke to come to her, 
full of water, fourteen yards up a hill from a well ;" and 
Margaret Johnson, accused of killing Henry Heape, 
and wasting and impairing the body of Jennet Shackle- 
ton — but there was no proof against her, save certain 
witch marks, which, however, were indisputable, and on 
the finding of which she was soon brought to confess. 
She said that, seven or eight years since, she was in a 
mighty rage against life and the world in general, when 
there appeared to her the devil like a man, dressed all 
in black tied about with silk points, who offered her all 
she might wish or want in return for her soul ; telling 
her that she might kill man or beast as she should 
desire, and take her revenge when she would ; and that 



THE SECOND CURSE OF PENDLE. 307 

if slie did but call " Mamillion " when she wanted him, 
he would come on the instant and do as he was bid. 
So " after a sollicitacion or two, she contracted and con- 
dicioned with the said devill or spiritt for her soul," and 
henceforth became one of the most notorious of the 
Lancashire witches. She confessed that she was at the 
great witch-meeting held at Harestones, in Pendle, on 
All Saints'-day last past, and again at another the 
Sunday after ; and that all the wdtches rode there on 
horses, and went to consult on the killing of men and 
beasts-; and that " there was one devill or spiritt that 
was more greate and grand devill than the rest, and yf 
anie witch desired to have such an one, they might 
have such an one to kill or hm-t anie body." She said, 
too, which was a new idea on her part, that the sharp- 
boned witches were more powerful and malig-nant than 
those with " biggs " only ; and then she wandered off, 
and accused certain of her neighbours, of whom one, 
"Pickhamer's wife, was the most greate, grand, and 
auncyent witch." Then she told her audience that if 
any witch desired to be carried to any place, a cat, or a 
dog, or a rod would convey them away ; but not their 
bodies, only their souls in the likeness of their bodies. 
The judge was not quite satisfied with either Edmund 
Eobinson's depositions or Margaret's confessions, and 
for all that the jury brought in a verdict of guilty, 
managed to get a reprieve, and to send up some of the 
accused to London. He managed also to interest the 
king, Charles I., w^ho had not his father's craze on the 
subject; and Charles ordered the bishop to make a 
special examination of the case, and send in his report. 
By this time, too, Edmund and his father were sepa- 
rated, and the boy fully examined; when at last he 
confessed to the entu^e worthlessness and fraud of all he 



308 THE WITCHES OF ENGLAND. 

had said. He had been robbing an orchard of bullees 
(plums) more than a mile off the barn at the day and 
hour named ; and, counselled by his father, had made 
up those wicked lies to screen himself. And then, find- 
ing the game profitable — for in a short time they made 
so good a thing by it that the father bought a couple of 
cows — he flew further a-field, and attacked every one 
within reach. Fortunately for his victims, the judge 
was a man of sense and independent judgment ; so the 
judiciary records of England are stained with one crime 
the less, and the neighbours lost the excitement of an 
execution. 



THE WITCH ON A PLANK.* 

" Many are in a belief that this silly sex of women 
can by no means attaine to that so vile and damned a 
practise of Sorcery and Witchcraft, in regard of their 
illiteratenesse and want of learning, which many men 
have by great learning done ;" nevertheless the Earl of 
Essex and his army, marching through Newberry, saw a 
feat done by a woman which not the most learned man 
of them all could have accomplished by natm-al means. 
Two soldiers were loitering behind the main body, 
gathering nuts, blackberries, and the like, when one 
climbed up a tree for sport, and the other followed him, 
jesting. From their vantage place, looking on the 
river, they there espied a " tall, lean, slender woman 

* • A most Certain Strange and true Discovery of a witch, being 
taken by some Parliamentary Forces as slie was standing on a small 
planck-board and sayling on it over the Eiver of Newberry. 1643.' 
Evidently a political matter, and perhaps with no substratum of 
truth in the story at all. 



THE WITCH ON A PLAIXK. 309 

treading of the water with her feet with as much ease 
and lirmnesse as if one should walk or trample on the 
earth." The soldier called to his companion, and he to 
the rest; and soon they all — captains, privates, and 
commanders alike — saw this marvellous lean woman, 
who now they perceived was standing on a thin plank, 
" which she pushed this way and that at her pleasure, 
making it a pastime to her, little perceiving who was on 
her tracks." Then she crossed the river, and the army 
after her ; hut there they lost her for a time, and when 
they found her all were too cowardly to seize her. At 
last one dare-devil went up and boldly caught her, 
demanding what she was. The poor wretch was dumb — 
perhaps with terror — and spoke nothing ; so they dragged 
her before the commanders, " to whom, though she was 
mightily urged, she did reply as little." As they could 
bethink themselves of nothing better to do with her, 
they set her upright against a mud bank or wall, 
and two of the soldiers, at their captain's command, 
made ready and fired. " But with a deriding and loud 
laughter at them, she caught their bullets in her hands 
and chew'd them, which was a stronger testimony than 
her treading water that she was the same that their 
imagination thought her for to be." Then one of the 
men set his carbine against her breast and fired ; but 
the bullet rebounded like a ball, and narrowly missed 
the face of the shooter, which " so enraged the Gentle- 
man, that one di-ew out his sword and manfully run at 
her with all the force his strength had power to make, 
but it prevailed no more than did the shot, the woman 
though still speechlesse, yet iu a most contemptible way 
of Scorn still laughing at them, which did the more 
exhaust their farie against her life ; yet one amongst 
the rest had heard that piercing or drawing bloud from 



310 THE WITCHES OF ENGLAND. 

forth the veines that crosse the temples of the head, it 
would prevail against the strongest sorceiy, and quell 
the force of Witchcraft, which was allowed for Triall : the 
woman, hearing this, knew then the Devill had left her, 
and her power was gone ; wherefore she began alowd to 
cry and roare, tearing her haire, and making pitious 
moan, which in these words expressed were : And is it 
come to passe that I must dye indeed ? Why then his 
Excellency the Earle of Essex shall be fortunate and 
win the field. After which no more words could be got 
from her; wherewith they immediately discharged a 
Pistoll underneath her eare, at which she straight sunk 
down and dyed, leaving her legacy of a detested carcasse 
to the wormes, her soul we ought not to iudge of, though 
the euills of her wicked life and death can scape no 
censure. Finis. This Book is not Printed according to 
order." 



THE WITCH-FINDING OF HOPKINS. 

And now the reig-n of Matthew Hopkins, of Manning- 
ton, gent., begins — that most infamous follower of an 
infamous trade — the witch-finder general of England. 
It was Hopkins who first reduced the practice of witch- 
finding to a science, and established rules as precise as 
any to be made for mathematics or logic. His method 
of proceeding was to " walk " a suspected witch between 
two inquisitors, who kept her from food and sleep, and 
incessantly walking, for fom^-and-twenty hours ; or if she 
could not be thus walked she was cross-bound — her 
right toe fastened to her left thumb, and her left toe to 
her right thumb — care being taken to draw the cords as 
tightly as possible, and to keep her as uneasily, and in 



THE WITCH-FINDING OF HOPKINS. 311 

tliis state she was placed on a high stool or chair, kept 
without food or sleep for the prescribed four-and-twenty 
hours, and vigilantly watched. And Hopkins recom- 
mended that a hole be made in the door, through which 
her imps were sure to come to be fed, and that her 
watchers be carefid to kill everything they saw — fly, 
spider, lice, mouse, what not ; for none knew when and 
under what form her familiars might appear ; and if by 
any chance they missed or could not Idll them, then 
they might be sm-e that they were imps, and so another 
proof be indisputably established. If neither of these 
ways 'would do, then, still cross-bound, she was to be 
" swum." If she sank, she was drov^ned ; if she floated 
— and by putting her carefully on the water she gene- 
rally would float — then she was a witch, and to be taken 
out and hung. For water, being the sacred element used 
in baptism, thus manifestly refused to hold such an 
accm-sed thing as a witch within its bosom; so that, 
when she swam, it was a proof that this *' sacred element " 
rejected her for the more potent keeping of the fire. 
This was the explanation which, it seemed to King 
James the First, was a rational and religious manner of 
accounting for a certain physical fact. 

This, then, was the wise and liberal manner in which 
an impossible sin was discovered, and judgment executed, 
in those fatal years when Matthew Hopkins ruled the 
mind of England; yet years wherein Harvey was 
patiently at work on his grand physiological discovery, 
and when Wallis, and AVilkins, and Boyle were found- 
ing the Royal Society of liberal art and free discussion. 
It was only a piece of poetical justice that in the future 
he should be " swum " cross-bound in his own manner, 
and found to float according to the hydrostatics of 
witches. The shame and fear of this trial hastened the 



312 THE WITCHES OF ENGLAND. 

consumption to wliich lie was hereditarily predisposed ; 
and after this stringent test we hear no more of this vile 
impostor and impudent deceiver, this canting h}^ocrite, 
who cloaked his cruelty and covetousness under the 
garb of religion, and professed to be serving G-od and 
delivering man from the power of the devil when he 
was pandering to the worst passions of the time, and 
sacrificing to his own corrupt heart. The blood money, 
for which he sent so many hapless wretches to the gallows 
(he charged twenty shillings a town for his labours), 
though not an exceeding bribe, as he himself boasts, 
was money pleasantly earned and pleasantly spent ; for 
what man would object to travel through a beautiful 
country, surrounded by friends, and carrying influence 
and importance wherever he went, and have all his 
expenses paid into the bargain ? 

In 1664* we find him at Yarmouth, accusing sixteen 
women in a batch, among whom was an old woman 
easily got to confess. She said she used to work for 
Mr. Moulton, a stocking merchant and alderman of the 
town ; but one day, going for work, she found him from 
home, and his man refused to let her have any till his 
return, which would not be for a fortnight. She, being 
exasperated against the man, applied to the maid to let 
her have some knitting to do, but the maid gave her 
the like answer : upon which she went home sorely dis- 
contented with both. In the middle of the night some 
one knocked at the door : on her rising to open it she 
saw a tall black man, who told her that she should have 
as much work from him as she would, if she would write 
her name in his book. He then scratched her hand 
with a penknife, and filled the pen with her blood- 
guiding her hand while she made her mark. This done, 
* A collection of Modem Relations. 1693. 



THE WITCH-FINDING OF HOPKINS. 313 

he asked what he could do for her: but when she 
desired to have her revenge on ^Ir. Moulton's man, he 
told her he had no power over him, because he went 
constantly to church to hear AMiitfield and Brinsley, and 
said his prayers morning and evening. The same of 
the maid ; but there was a young child in the house 
more easy to be dealt with, for whom he would make 
an image of wax which then they must bury in the 
churchyard, and as the waxen image wasted and con- 
sumed, so would the child; which was done, and the 
child thrown into a languishing condition in conse- 
quence; so bad, indeed, that they all thought it was 
dying. But as soon as the witch confessed, the little one 
lifted up its head and laughed, and from that instant 
began to recover. The waxen image was found where 
she said she and the devil had bmied it, and thus the 
whole of the charm was destroyed, and the child was 
saved ; but the poor old crazy woman with her black- 
bird imp, and her fifteen compeers with their whole 
menagerie of imps, were hung at Yarmouth, amid the 
rejoicings of the multitude. 

At Edmonsbury, that same year, another witch had 
a Kttle black smooth imp dog, which she sent to play 
with the only child of some people she hated. At 
first the child refused to play with its questionable 
companion, but soon got used to its daily appearance, 
and lost all fear. So the dog-imp, watching its oppor- 
tunity, got the boy one day to the water, when it 
dragged him underneath and drowned him. The witch 
was hanged : could they do less in such a clear case as 
this? 

Another woman was hanged at Oxford for a story as wild 
as any to be found in Grimm or Mother Bunch. There 
were two sisters, left orphans but well provided for. 



314 THE WITCHES OF ENGLAND. 

The eldest, somewhat prodigal, married a man as bad 
or worse than herself, who spent her money and after- 
wards deserted her, leaving her with one child and in 
extreme poverty. The younger, being very serious and 
religious, waited for two or three years before she settled 
herself, then married a good, honest, sober farmer, with 
whom she lived well and prosperously; her gear in- 
creasing yearly, and herself the happy mother of a 
pretty child. Her sister was moved to envy to see all 
this prosperity and contentment, and in her ]3assion 
made a compact with the devil, by which she became a 
witch for the purpose of killing her sister's cliild as the 
greatest despite she could do them. For this purpose 
she used to mount a bedstaif, which, by the uttering of 
certain magical words, carried her to her sister's room ; 
but she could never harm the child, because it was so 
well protected by the prayers of its parents. Her own 
daughter, a little one of about seven, watched her 
mother in her antics with the bedstaff, and from watch- 
ing took to imitating — going through the air one night 
after its dame, and in like fashion. However, it chanced 
that she was left beliind in her uncle's house ; so pre- 
sently she fell a-crying, her powers being apparently 
limited to going, not including the magic words that 
insured the return. Her uncle and aunt, hearing a 
child cry where never a child should be, took a candle 
and discovered the whole matter. Next day the child 
was taken before the magistrate, to whom it told its 
tale, and the mother was apprehended. On the trial 
this little creature of seven years old was admitted as 
the cliief evidence against her mother ; and after they 
had made the poor woman mad among them, she con- 
fessed, and was hanged quite quietly. These were only 
two out of the hundreds whom that miserable man, 



THE MANNINGTREE WITCHES. 315 

]\Iatthew Ilopkins, gent., contrived to send to the gallows. 
Beaumont, in liis Treatise on Spirits, mentions that 
^' thu*ty-six were arraigned at the same time before Judge 
Coniers, An. 1645, and fourteen of them hanged, and an 
hundred more detained in several prisons in Suffolk and 
Essex." But the most celebrated and the saddest of all 
the trials in wliich Hopkins played a part was that of 



THE MANNINGTREE WITCHES, 

held before Sir Matthew Hale in 1645 — Hopkins's great 
witch-year. 

In a very scarce tract called * A true and exact 
relation of the severall Informations, Examinations, and 
Confessions of the Late Witches Arraigned and Ex- 
ecuted in the county of Essex, Published by Authoritie, 
and Printed by M. S. for Henry Overton and Benj. 
Allen, and are to be sold at their shops in Popes- 
head-alley, 1645,' is an account of these Manningtree 
witches. One John Kivet's wife, living in Manningtree, 
was taken sick and lame and with violent fits, and John 
swore before Sh Harbottel Grimston, one of the justices 
of the peace, that a cunning woman — wife of one Hovye 
at Hadleigh — told him that his wife was cursed by two 
women, near neighbours ; of whom one was Elizabeth 
Clarke, alias Bedingfield. Elizabeth's mother, and 
others of her kinsfolk, had been hanged for witchcraft in 
the bygone years : so it ran in the blood, and it was not 
to be wondered at if it broke out afresh now. Sir Har- 
bottel Grimston and Sir Thomas Bowes, the two Justices 
before whom this deposition was taken, then admitted 
the evidence of Matthew Hopkins of Manningtree, gen- 
tleman and witch-finder, who deposed to having watched 



316 THE WITCHES OF ENGLAND. 

Elizabeth Clarke last night, being the 24th of March, 
1645, when he and one Master Sterne, who watched with 
him, saw some strange things which he would presently 
tell their worships of. Elizabeth told this deponent 
and his companion that if they would stay and do her 
no harm, she would call one of her imps, and play with 
it in her lap ; which at first they refused, but afterwards 
consenting, there appeared to them " an Impe like to 
a Dog, which was white, with some sandy spots, and 
seemed to be very fat and plump, with very short 
legges, who forthwith vanished a^vay." This was 
Jarmara. Then came Vinegar Tom, in the shape of a 
greyhound with very long legs ; and then for a moment 
only came one for Master Sterne, a black imp which 
vanished instantly ; then one like a polecat, only 
bigger.* Elizabeth now told them that she had five 
imps of her own, and two of Beldam West's, and that 
they sucked turn and turn about : now she was sucked 
by Beldam West's and now Beldam West by hers. She 
fui'ther said that Satan, whom she knew very much too 
well as " a proper Gentleman with a laced band, having 

* Matthew's own account of them in a little tract called ' Certaine 
Queries Answered, -which have been and are likely to be objected 
against Matthew Hopkins, in his way of finding out witches,' was 
shghtly different,— 1. Holt, like a white kitling. — 2. Jarmara, a fat 
spaniel without any legs at all, which she said she kept fat, for he 
sucked good blood from her body. — 3. Vinegar Tom, a long-legged 
greyhound with an head like an ox, a long tail and broad eyes, who, 
when Hopkins spoke to, and bade him go to the place provided for 
him and his angels, transformed himself into the shape of a child of 
foure years without a head, and gave half a dozen turns about the 
house and vanished at the door. — 4. Sack-and-sugar, like a black 
rabbit ; and 5. Newes, like a polecat. Also he said that no mortal 
could invent such names as Elemauzer, Pyewacket, Peck in the 
Crown, Griezel Greedigut, &c., which, however, one of our great word- 
masters, Charles Dickens, would find no diflBculty in doing, and which 
certainly have no very infernal sound in them. 



THE MANNINGTREE WITCHES. 317 

the wliole proportion of a Man," would never let her 
have any peace till she slew the hogs of Mr. Edwards 
of Manningtree, and Mr. Taylor's horse. When she 
had slain them Satan let her be qm'et. Then of his 
own accord, j\[r. Hopkins said that going from Mr. Ed- 
wards's house to his own, that night at nine or ten, he 
saw the greyhound which he had with him jump as if 
after a hare ; and coming up hurriedly, there was a 
white thing like a " kitlyn," and his greyhound stand- 
ing aloof from it ; but by-and-by the white kitlyn came 
dancing round and about the greyhound, " and by all 
likelihood bit off a piece of the flesh of the shoulder of 
the greyhound ; for the greyhound came shrieking and 
crying to this Informant, with a piece of fleshe torne 
from her shoulder." To crown all, coming into his 
own yard, Mr. Hopkins saw a thing like a black cat, 
only three times as big, sitting on the strawberry-bed 
glaring at him ; but when he went towards it, it leaped 
over the pale, ran right through the yard — his greyhound 
after it — then flung open a gate which was " underset 
with a paire of Tumbrell strings," and so vanished, 
leaving the greyhound in a state of extreme terror. 
Which, if there was any truth at all in these deposi- 
tions, and they were not merely arbitrary lies, would 
make one suspect that Master Matthew Hopkins had 
been drinking, and knew a few of the phenomena of 
delirium tremens. 

John Sterne, Matthew's slavey or attendant, then 
gave information. Watching with Matthew Hopkins, 
he asked Elizabeth Clarke if she were never afraid of 
her imps? to whom she made this notable answer, 
" What, doe you thinke I am afraid of my childi-en ?" 
His tale of imps was rather different to his patron's : 
they had consulted hurriedly, or John's memory was 



318 THE WITCHES OF ENGLAND. 

bad. The white imp was Hoiilt; Jarmara had red 
spots ; Yinegar Tom was like a " dumbe Dogge ;" and 
Sack-and-Sugar was a hard-working imp, which would 
tear Master John Sterne when it came. And it was 
well that Master Sterne was so quick, else this imp 
would have " soon skipped upon his face, and perchance 
had got into his throate, and then there would have 
been a feast of toades in this Informant's belly."" Eli- 
zabeth had one imp, she said, for which she would 
fight up to her knees in blood before she would lose it ; 
and when asked what the devil was like as a man, said 
he was a " proper man," a deal " properer " than 
Matthew Hopkins. 

Other witnesses affirmed that if Elizabeth smacked 
with her mouth then a white cat-like imp, would come, 
and that they saw five more imps, named as above. 
And furthermore that she confessed that old Beldam, 
meaning Ann West — which was a very disrespectful 
way of speaking of her gossip — had killed Eobert Oakes' 
vdfe and a clothier's child of Dedham, both of whom 
had died about a week since ; and also that ** the said 
old Beldam Weste had the wife of one Wilham Cole of 
Mannintree in handling, who deid not long since of a 
pining and languishing disease," and that she had 
raised the wind which sunk the hoy in which was Tom 
Turner's brother thirty months agone. She also said 
that Beldam West had taught her all she knew ; for 
that one day as she was pitying her for her lameness — she 
had but one leg — and for her poverty, she told her how 
she might get imps and be rich, for that the imps would 
help her to a husband who would keep her ever after, so 
that she need not be put to such miserable shifts as gather- 
ing sticks for a living. Elizabeth Clarke then accused 
Elizabeth Gooding of being one of the tribe : and Robert 



THE MAIJNINGTREE WITCHES. 319 

Taylor came forward to give corroborative evidence 
against lier. He said that nine weeks since, Elizabeth 
Gooding came to his shop for half a pound of cheese, on 
trust ; that he denied it to her ; whereupon she went 
away, " muttering and mumbling " to herself, and soon 
came back Avith the money. That very night his horse, 
which w^as in the stable, sound and in good condition, 
fell lame and in four days' time died of a strange dis- 
ease, and Elizabeth Gooding was the cause thereof. 
Elizabeth Gooding " is a lewd woman, and to this In- 
formant's knowledge, hath kept company with the said 
Elizabeth Clarke, Anne Leech, and Anne West, which 
Anne West hath been suspected for a Witch many 
years since, and suffered imprisonment for the same." 
Elizabeth Gooding contented herself with saying quietly 
that she was not gTiilty of any one particular charged 
upon her in the examination of the said Robert Taylor. 
Nevertheless she was executed at Chelmsford. 

Richard Edwards said that twelve months since he 
was driving his cows near to the house of Anne Leech, 
widow, when they both fell down and died in two days ; 
the next day his white cow fell down within a rod of 
the same place, and died in a week after. In August 
last his child was out at nurse at goodwife Wyles', who 
lived near Elizabeth Gooding and Elizabeth Clarke; 
which said child was taken very sick, with rolling of 
the eyes, strange fits, extending of the limbs, and in 
two days it died : and Elizabeth Gooding and Anne 
Leech were the cause of its death. 

And now poor old Anne Leech was brought on the 
scene, to " confess," as so many wretched victims did. 
She said that she and Elizabeth Clarke and Elizabeth 
Gooding sent their imps to kill Mr. Edwards's black 
cow, and his white cow ; she sent a grey imp, Elizabeth 



320 THE WITCHES OF ENGLAND. 

Clarke a black one, and Gooding a white; also that 
thirty years since she sent her grey imp to kill Mr. 
Bragge's two horses, because he had called her dr 
naughty woman — and that the imps did their work 
without fear of failure. When these imps were abroad, 
she said, and after mischief, she had her health, but when 
they were unemployed and for ever hanging about her, 
she was sick. They often spoke to her in a hollow 
voice which she easily understood, and told her that she 
should never feel hell's torments : which it is very sure 
the poor old maniac never did. She and Gooding 
killed Mr. Edwards's child too ; she with her white imp, 
and Elizabeth with her black one. She had her white 
imp about thirty years since, and a grey and a black as 
well, from " one Anne, the wife of Eobert Pearce of 
Stoak in Suffolk, being her brother." Three years since 
she sent her grey imp to kill Elizabeth Kirk; and 
Elizabeth languished for about a year after and then 
died ; the cause of her, Anne Leech's, malice being 
that she had asked of Elizabeth a coif, which she 
refused. The gTey imp killed the daughter of Widow 
Kawlyns, because Widow Kawlyns had put her out of 
her farm; and she knew that Gooding had sent her 
imp to vex and torment Mary Taylor, because Mary 
refused her some beregood; but when she wanted to 
warn her, the devil would not let her. Lastly, she 
said, that about eight weeks ago she had met West and 
Gooding at Elizabeth Clarke's house " where there 
was a book read wherein she thinks there was no 
goodnesse." 

So all these wretched creatures were hanged at 
Chelmsford, and the informants plumed themselves 
greatly on their evidence. But before then* execution, 
poor Hellen Clark, wife of Thomas Clark, and daughter 



THE MANNINGTREE WITCHES. 321 

of Anne Leech, was " f3ded." On the 4th of April, 
1645, Kichard Glascock gave information that he had 
heard a falling out between Hellen, and Mary wife of 
Edward Parsley, and that he *' heard the said Hellen 
to say as the said Hellen passed by this Informant's 
door in the street, that Mary the daughter of the said 
Edward and Mary Parsley should rue for all, whereupon 
presently the said Mary, the daughter, fell sick and 
died Avithin six weeks after." When Helen was 
arrested she made her confession glibly. She said 
that about six weeks since the devil came to her house 
in the likeness of a white dog by name Elimanzer, and 
that she fed him with milk porridge ; that he spoke to 
her audibly, bidding her deny Christ and she should 
never want ; which she did ; but she did not kill Mary 
Parsley nevertheless. She was executed at 3Ianning- 
tree all the same as if she had spoken sober truth. 

On the 23rd of the same month Prudence Hart came 
to the magistrates with an accusation. About eight 
weeks since, she said, being at church very well and 
healthful — some twenty weeks gone with child — she 
was suddenly taken with pains, and miscarried before 
she could be got home : and about two nionths since, 
being in bed, something fell upon her right side, but 
being dark she could not tell of what shape it was : 
but presently ■ she was taken lame on that side, and 
with extraordinary pains and burning, and she believed 
that Anne West and Eebecca West, the daughter, were 
the cause of her pains. John Edes also swelled the count 
of accusations. He said that Eebecca had confessed to 
him that seven years since her mother incited her 
to intercourse with the devil, who had since appeared 
to her at divers times and in various shapes, but chiefly 
as a proper young man, desiring of her such things as 

Y 



322 THE WITCHES OF ENGLAND. 

proper young men are wont to desire of women ; pro- 
mising: lier that if she would yield to his wishes she 
should have what she would, and especially should be 
avenged of her enemies ; and that then Eebeeca had 
demanded the death of Hart's son of Lawford, who, not 
long after, was taken sick and died. At which Rebecca 
had said " that shee conceived hee could do as God." 
And furthermore, that Rebecca said, while she lived at 
Rivenall her mother Anne came to her and said, " the 
Barley Corn was picked up," meaning one George 
Francis ; and that shortly after George's father said his 
son was bewitched to death ; to which Anne replied, " Be 
it unto him according to his faith." When Rebecca was 
called on the 21st of March, to answer to these charges, 
she confirmed all that JohnEdes had said, adding a few 
unimportant particulars which insm^ed the execution of 
her mother in the August following ; but in spite of her 
own confession she herself, though found guilty by the 
grand jury, was acquitted for life and death. Matthew 
Hopkins struck a few dashes of colour over the canvas, 
telling the judges that Rebecca had told him she was 
made a witch by her mother; and that when she 
met the four other goodies in Clarke's house, the 
devil, or their familiars, had come, now in the shaj)e 
of a dog, then of two kittyns, then of two dogs — and 
that they first did homage to Elizabeth Clarke, skip- 
ping up into her lap and kissing her, and then to all the 
rest, kissing each one of them save Rebecca. After- 
wards, when Satan came as a man, he gave her kisses 
enough: and not quite so innocently as the "kittyns 
and the dogges." 

Susan Sparrow and Mary Greenliefe lived together. 
Each had a daughter thirteen or fourteen years old ; and 
one night Susan Sparrow, being awake, heard Mary's 



THE MANNINGTREE WITCHES. 323 

child cry out, '' Oh mother, now it comes, it comes ! 
Oh helpe, mother, it hm-ts me, it hm-ts me ! " So Susan 
said, '•' Goodwife Greenliefe, Goodwife Greenliefe, if 
your childe be asleep awaken it, for if anybody comes 
by and heare it make such moans (you having- an ill 
name already), they will say you are suckHng your 
Impes upon it." To which Mary replied that this was 
just what she was doing, and that she would •' fee " 
with them (meaning her Imps), that one night they 
should suck her daughter, and one night Susan Spar- 
row's ; which fell out as she said. For the very next 
night Susan's child cried out in the same manner as 
Mary's had done, and clasped her mother round the 
neck, much affrighted and shrieking pitifully. She 
complained of being pinched and nipped on her thigh ; 
and in the morning there was a black and blue spot as 
broad and long as her hand. Susan Sparrow^ also said 
that the house where they lived was haunted by a 
leveret, w^hich came and sat before the door; and 
knowing that Anthony Sharlock had a capital courser, 
she went and asked him to banish it for her. Vrhether 
the dog killed it or not she did not know ; all that she 
did know was, that Goodman Merrill's dog coursed it 
but a short time before, but the leveret never stirred, 
and " just when the dog came at it he skipped over it, 
and turned about and stood still, and looked on it, 
and shortly after that dog languished and dyed. But 
whether this was an Impe in the shape of a Leveret, or 
had any relation to the said Mary, this Informant 
knows not, but does confesse shee wondered very 
much to see a Leveret, wilde by nature, to come so fre- 
quently and sit openly before the dore in such a 
familiar way." Mary was searched, and found marked 
Avith witch marks, but contented herself with quietly 



324 THE WITCHES OF ENGLAND. 

denying all knowledge of familiars, witchcraft, " bigges," 
and the like. 

Mary Johnson was accused of having a familiar, in 
shape like a rat " without tayl or eares," which she 
used to carry about in her pocket, and set to rock the 
cradle. She kissed Elizabeth Otley's child, and gave 
it an apple, and the child sickened and died of fits ; 
and Elizabeth herself had extraordinary pains, which 
left her when she had scuffled with Mary Johnson and 
gotten her blood. And she killed Annabell Durant's 
child by commending it as a pretty thing, stroking its 
face, and giving it a piece of bread and butter ; and 
Annabell knew that she had been the death of the 
child, because, " setting up of broome in the outhouse 
after the little one had been taken, she saw the perfect 
representation of a shape just like Mary Johnson, and 
was struck with such a lamenesse in her Arms that she 
was not able to bow her arms, and so continued speech- 
less all that day and night following. Mary came also 
as the noise of a Hornet, to the room where Annabell's 
husband lay sick, for he cried out, ' It comes, it comes ! 
Now Goodwife Johnson's Impe is come ! Now she hath 
my life !'" And immediately a great part of the wall 
fell down. So was not Mary Johnson an undoubted 
witch with all this testimony against her ? 

Anne Cooper was executed at Manningtree because 
she had three black imps, by name Wynow, Jeso, and 
Panu ; because she gave her daughter Sarah a grey 
imp like a kite, and called Tomboy, telling her there 
was a cat for her to play with ; because she cursed a 
colt and it broke its neck directly after ; and because 
she sent one of her imps to kill little Mary Kous — ^which 
it did. Elizabeth Hare was condemned, but afterwards 
re^^rieved, for giving two imps to Mary Smith. The 



THE MANNINGTEEE WITCHES. 325 

poor old woman " praying to God with her hands up- 
ward, that if she was guilty of any such thing, He would 
show some example on her, presently after she shaked 
and quivered, and fell to the ground backward, and 
tumbled up and down the ground, and hath continued 
sick ever since." 

Old Margaret Moone had twelve imps, but her in- 
formants could only remember the names of " Jesus, 
Jockey, Sandy, Mrs. Elizabeth, and CoUyn." Her 
imps killed cows and babes ; spoiled brewings ; broke 
horses.' necks ; bewitched " aples " so that the eaters 
thereof died; sent Eawbodd's wife such a plague of 
lice that they might have been swe23t off her clothes 
with a stick ; and did other maleficent things, proper 
to imps and witches. When searched she was found 
to have " bigges " where the imps sucked ; and con- 
fessed the same, saying that " if she might have some 
bread and beere she would call her said Impes ; which 
being given unto her, she put the bread into the beere 
and set it against a hole in the wall, and made a circle 
round about the pot, and then cried, Come Christ, come 
Christ, come Mounsier, come Mounsier." No imps ap- 
pearing, she said her daughters had carried them off in a 
white bag, and demanded that the said daughters might 
be '* searched," " for they were naught." They were 
searched, and were found witch-marked. Margaret 
denied all the charges against herself, but was con- 
demned nevertheless ; and only escaped the executioner's 
hands by dying on her way to the gallows. 

Judith Moone helped her mother a step gallowsward 
by a rambUng, pointless confession about some wood, 
and how her mother threatened her, and how something 
seemed to come about her legs that night ; but when 
she searched she found nothing ; so Judith Moone pro- 



326 THE WITCHES OF ENGLAND. 

bably died because she did not know how to distinguish 
a false sensation from a true one. 

Elizabeth Harvey, widow, Sarah Hating, wife, Marian 
Hocket, widow, were " searched :" the first two were 
marked, the last not, but yet was the worst witch of 
all, for she had made Elizabeth Harvey as bad as her- 
self by bringing her three things the bigness of mouses, 
which she said were " pretty things," and to be made 
use of. As for Sarah Hating, she had sent Francis 
Stock's wife a snake, which the said wife espied lying on 
a shelf, and strove to kill with a spade, but the snake 
was too cjuick for her and vanished away ; so Francis 
Stock's wife was taken sick, and withui one week died. 
A daughter was taken ill immediately after her mother, 
and she also died, and then another child; all be- 
cause Francis Stock had impressed Sarah Hating's hus- 
band for a soldier, and Sarah Hating was angered. 
Marian Hocket was told on by her own sister, Sarah 
Barton, who said that she had given her three imps, 
" Littleman, Prettyman, and Dainty." They were all 
executed, Sarah and Marian denying their guilt, but 
Elizabeth Harvey sticking to her tale of the three 
mouses which Marian had brought her, and which 
sucked her. 

Eose Hallybread bewitched Eobert Turner's servant 
so that he crowed like a cock, barked like a dog* 
groaned beyond the ordinary course of nature, and, 
though but a youth, struggled with such strength that 
four or five men could not hold him. Says Kose, fifteen 
or sixteen years ago, Goodwife Hagtree brought an imp 
to her house which she nourished on oatmeal, and 
suckled according to the manner of witches, for the 
space of a year and a half-— when she lost it ; then Joyce 
Boanes brought her another, as a small grey bird, which 



THE MANNINGTREE WITCHES. 327 

she carried to Tliomas Toakley's house in St. Osyth, 
putting it into a cranny of the door, so that his son 
should die, as he did — crying out all the time that 
Rose Hallybread had killed him. She then accused 
Susan Cocks and Margaret Landish, and died in prison, 
eheatino- the hano-man. 

Old Joyce Boanes now took up the tale. She had 
two imps like mouses she said, and they killed the 
lambs at the farm-house called Cocket-wick, and one of 
these imps called " Rug " she took to Rose Hallybread, 
that they might torment Turner's servant. AATierefore 
her imp made him bark like a dog ; Rose Hallybread's 
'•'inforced him to sing sundry tunes in his gTeat ex- 
tremity of paines ;" Susan Cock's compelled him to crow 
like a cock ; and Margaret Landish's made him groan. 
Poor old Joyce Boanes was hanged in return for her 
drivelHng ravings. 

So was Susan Cock ; who confirmed all that had gone 
before, adding only that the night her mother died she 
gave her two imps, one like a mouse " Susan," the 
other yellow and like a cat " Besse," with which she did 
sundry acts of spite and damage. Wherefore Susan was 
put out of the way of farther harm. Margaret Landish 
knew not much about the matter, but was executed never- 
theless, for having be^vitched Thomas Hart's child — in- 
cited thereto by the girl's pointing at her and crying 
" There goes Pegg the witch !" upon which Peg turned 
back and clapped her hands in a threatening manner, 
saying " she should smart for it," and that very night 
the child fell sick in a raving manner, and died within 
three weeks after ; often in its fits crying out that "Pegg 
the witch was by the bedside making strange mouths at 
her." 

Rebecca Jones owned to knowing the devil as a 



328 THE WITCHES OF ENGLAND. 

handsome young man, who pricked her wrist and made 
her his in soul and body. This was about four or five 
and twenty years ago, when living with John Bishop as 
his servant. About three months since too, going to St. 
Osyth to sell her master's butter, she met a man in a 
ragged suit and with such great eyes that she was afraid 
of him, and he gave her three things like "monies," 
having four feet apiece but no tails, and black, which 
he told her to nm-se carefully and feed on milk. Their 
names were Margaret, Anie, and Susan, and they killed 
cows and sheep and hogs, and revenged her on her 
enemies. So Kebecca was hanged as befitted. 

Johan Cooper, widow, had three imps, two like 
mouses and one like a frog ; their names were " Prick- 
eare, Eobyn, and Frog," and they killed men and 
beasts. Wherefore she too was hanged like the rest. 

Anne Gate had four, given her by her mother twenty 
years ago, " James, Prickeare, Eobyn, and Sparrow :" 
the first three like mouses, and the fourth like a spar- 
row ; and they did evil and mischief and killed all 
whom she would. She was hanged too. 

At the end of the tract is a very curious bit of evi- 
dence, given by an honest man of Manningtree, one 
Goff, a glover, concerning old Anne West, then on her 
trial. He said that one moonlight morning, about four 
o'clock, as he was passing Anne West's house, the door 
being open, he looked in and saw three or four little 
things like black rabbits which came skipping towards 
him. He struck at them, but missed ; when, by better luck, 
he caught one in his hand and tried to wring its head 
off; but *'as he wrung and stretched the neck of it, it 
came out betweene his hands like a lock ofwooU," so he 
went to drown it at a spring not far off. But still as he 
went he could not hinder himself from falling down, so 



THE MANNINGTREE WITCHES. 329 

that at last lie was obliged to creep on his hands and 
knees, till he came to the water, when he held the imp 
for a long space underneath, till he conceived it was 
drowned, but, "letting goe his hand, it sprang out 
of the water up mto the aire, and so vanished away." 
Coming back to Anne West's, he found her standing 
at her door in terrible undress, and to his complaint of 
why did she send her imps to molest him? she answered 
*' that they were not sent out to trouble him, but as 
Scouts upon another designe." 

But one of the most painful murders of the Hopkins 
Session was that of old Mr. Lewis,* the " Heading Parson " 
of Franlingham ; a fine old man of good character, but 
generally regarded as a Malignant, because he preferred 
to read Queen EKzabeth's Homilies instead of com- 
posing nasal discourses of his own, of the kind so dear 
to the Puritan party: wherefore the authorities and 
Matthew Hopkins — who was a devout Puritan — had 
their eyes upon him, and were not disposed to be lenient. 
He was swum in Hopkins's manner, cross-bound ; set on 
a table cross-legged ; kept several nights without sleep, 
and twenty-four hours without food; run backwards 
and forwards in the room, two men holding him, until 
he was out of breath; "pricked" and searched for 
marks; after all which barbarity it is not surprising 
to find that the poor old Eeading Parson of eighty-five 
"confessed." Yes, he had made a compact with the 
devil and sealed it with his blood ; and he had two imps 
that sucked him, one of which, the yellow dun imp, was 
always urging him to do some mischief, but the other 
was more amiable. Accordingly, to please the yellow 
dun he had one day sent it to sink an Ipswich ship, 
which he spied out in the offing: a commission which 
* Baxter, Hutchinson, &c. 



330 THE WITCHES OF ENGLAND. 

the imp executed with zeal and precision before the 
eyes of a whole beach full of spectators. This Ipswich 
ship was one of many that rode safely enough in the 
calm sea, but the imp troubled the waters immediately 
about her, and down she went like a stone, as all present 
could testify. Asked if he had not grieved to make so 
many — they were fourteen — widows in a few moments 
he said *'No, he was glad to have pleased his imp." 
This confession and various witch " bigges " found on 
him Avere held proofs conclusive ; and Mr. Lewis was 
condemned to be hanged ; his eighty years, and his 
gown, protecting him nowise. As soon as he was a 
little refreshed he denied all the ravings he had been 
induced to utter, read the burial service for himself with 
cheerfulness and courage, and met his death calmly and 
composedly; perhaps not sorry to resign into God's 
keeping a life which Matthew Hopkins and the Puritans 
were rendering intolerable. 

A Penitent Woman* of the same time confessed that 
when her mother lay sick a thing like a mole ran into 
bed to her. She, the Penitent Woman, started, but her 
mother told her not to fear, but to talkie the mole and 
keep it, saying, " Keep this in a pot by the fire, and thou 
shalt never want." The daughter did as she was bid, 
and made the mole comfortable in its pot. And after 
she had done this, a seemingly poor boy came in and 
asked leave to warm himself by the fire. When he 
went away she found some money under the stool 
whereon he had sat. This happened many times, and 
so her mother's promise and her imp brought the poor 
penitent romancer Barmecidal good luck. It could 
not have been much, for Hopkins, or at least his friend 
and comrade John Sterne, says in the exanunation of 
* Baxter. 



THE MANXINGTKEE WITCHES. 331 

Joan Kuccalver, of Powstead, Suffolk, that " six shillings 
Avas the largest amount he had ever known given by an 
imp to its dame." 

That all this seemed right and rational in the eyes 
of sane men is one of the most marvellous thiugs con- 
nected with the delusion : that well-educated English- 
men should send such a wretch as Matthew Hopkins 
with legal authorisation to prick witches, associating 
with him Mr. Calamy "to see that there was no 
fraud :" that they should arraigii miserable old women 
by scores, and hang them by dozens : and that Baxter 
should gravely argue for the vaKdity of ghosts and 
spectres on the plea that " various Creatures must have 
a various Situation, Eeception, and Operation : the 
Fishes must not dwell in our cities nor be acquainted 
with our affairs" — strikes me chiefly with amazement 
at the marvellous imbecility of superstition. It is well 
for the leaders of sects to bid us cast down our reason 
before blind faith ; for, assuredly, our reason, which is 
the greatest gift of God, pleads loudly against the 
follies of belief and the vital absurdities into which 
religionists fall when unchecked by common sense. It 
was only the " Atheists " and " Sadducees," as they 
were called, who at last managed to put a stop to this 
hideous delusion : all the pious believers upheld the 
holy need of searching for witches, and of not suffering 
them to live wherever they might be found. All sects 
and denominations of Christians joined in this, and 
found a meeting-place of brotherly love and concord 
beneath the witches' gallows. And though one's soul 
revolts most at the so-called "Eeformed Party," be- 
cause of the greater imctuousness of their piety, and 
their mighty professions, yet they were all equally 
guilty, one with the other ; all equally steeped to the lips 



332 THE WITCHES OF ENGLAND. 

in insanest superstition. The temper of the times has 
so far changed now that men and women are no longer 
hung because they have mesmeric powers, or because 
hysterical and epileptic patients utter wild ravings : but 
the thing remains the same ; there is the same amount 
of superstition still afloat, if somewhat altered in its 
direction ; and modern Spiritualism, which has come to 
supersede Witchcraft, is, when it is true at all and not 
mere legerdemain, as little understood and as falsely 
catalogued as was ever the art of magic and sorcery. 



THE HUNTINGDON IMPS. 

In another very scarce tract by "J. D." (John Daven- 
port) " present at the trial," we come to a strange and 
mournful group of judicial murders that took place in 
Huntingdon, 1646. First, there was Elizabeth Weed, 
of Great Catworth, who confessed that twenty-one years 
ago, as she was saying her prayers, three spirits came 
suddenly to her, one of which was like a man or youth, 
and the other two like puppies, of which one was wliite 
and the other black. The young man asked her if she 
would renounce God and Christ : to which she assented, 
her faith being weak; and then the devil promised 
that she should do all the mischief she would, if she 
would covenant to give him her soul at the end of 
twenty-one years. She assented to this too ; and sealed 
the bargain with her blood. He drew the blood from 
under her left arm, and " a great lump of flesh did rise 
there, and has increased ever since ;" and the devil 
scribbled with her blood, and the covenant was signed 
and sealed. The name of her white imp, like a puppy, 
was " Lilly," of the black " Priscille ;" and the office of 



THE HUNTINGDON IMPS. 333 

the wliite was to hurt man, woman, and child, but of the 
black to hurt cattle. The man spirit's function was 
that of her husband, in which relation she lived with 
him to her great satisfaction. Lilly killed Mr. Henry- 
Bedell's child, and Priscille sundry cattle ; but she had 
not had much good of the bargain, for the twenty-one 
years were to be out next Low Sunday, when her soul 
would be required of her and the devil would take her 
away ; and she desired to be rid of the burden of her 
life before then. The judges acquiesced in her desire : 
which a little good food and careful watching would 
have proved to them was but the phantasy of disease ; 
and the hangman had her body, though no devil took 
her soul, and her sufferings and her sins vexed the 
universe ilo more. 

John Winnick's confession is one of the most graphic 
and extraordinary of any in the tract. I give it word 
for word as I found it. 

" The examination of John Winnick, of Molseworth 
in the said County, Labourer, taken upon the 11th day 
of Aprill, 1616, before Eobert Bernard, Esquire, one of 
His Majesties Justices of the Peace for this County. 
Hee saith, that about 29 yeares since, the 29th yeare 
ending about Midsommer last past, he being a Batchel- 
lour, lived at Thropston with one Buteman, who then 
kept the Inne at the George, and withall kept Hus- 
bandry : this Examinate being a servant to him in his 
Husbandry, did then loose a purse with 7s. in it, for 
which he suspected one in the Family. He saith that 
on a Friday being in the barne, making hay-bottles for 
his horses about noon, swearing, cursing, raging, and 
wishing to himselfe that some wise body (or Wizzard) 
would helpe him to his purse and money again : there 
appeared unto him a Spirit, blacke and shaggy, and 
baving pawes like a Beare, but in bulk not fully so big 



334 THE WITCHES OF ENGLAND. 

as a Coney. The Spirit asked him what he ailed to be 
so sorrowful!, this Examinate answered that he had lost 
a purse and money, and knew not how to come by it 
again. The Spirit replied, if you will forsake God and 
Christ and fall down and worship me for your God, I will 
help you to your purse and money again. This Exami- 
nate said he would, and thereupon fell down upon his 
knees and held up his hands. Then the Spirit said, to- 
morrow about this time of the day, you shall find your 
purse upon the floor where you are now making bottles, 
I will send it to you, and will also come my selfe. 
Whereupon this Examinate told the Spirit he would 
meete him there, and receive it, and worship him. 
Whereupon at the time prefixed, this Examinate went 
unto the place, and found his purse upon the 'floore, and 
tooke it up, and looking afterwards into it, he found 
there all the money that was formerly lost : but before 
he had looked into it, the same Spirit appears unto him 
and said, there is your purse and your money in it : and 
then this Examinate fell downe upon his knees and said. 
My Lord and God I thanke you. The said Spirit at 
that time brought with him two other Spirits for shape, 
bignesse, and colour, the one like a white Cat, the 
other like a grey Coney ; and while this Examinate 
was upon his knees, the Beare Spirit spake to him, say- 
ing, you must worship these two Spirits as jou worship 
me, and take them for your Gods also : then this 
Examinate directed his bodie towards them, and called 
them his Lords and Gods. Then the Beare Spirit told 
him that when he dyed he must have his soule, where- 
unto this Examinate yielded. Hee told him then also 
that they must suck of his body, to which this 
Examinate also yielded ; but they did not sucke at 
that time. The Beare Spirit promised him that he 
should never want victuals. The Cat Spirit that it 



THE HUNTINGDON IMPS. 335 

would hurt Cattel when he would desire it. And the 
Coney-like Spirit that it would hurt men when he 
desired. The Bear Spirit told him that it must have 
some of his blood wherewith to seale the Covenant, 
whereunto this Examinate yielded, and then the beare 
Spirit leapt upon his shoulder, and prickt him on the 
head, and from thence tooke blood; and after thus 
doiag. the said three spirits vanisht away. The next 
day "about noone, the said Spirits came to him while hee 
was in the field, and told him they were come to suck 
of his body, to which he yielded, and they suckt his 
body at" the places where the marks are found, and from 
that time to this, they have come constantly to him once 
every 24 hours, sometimes by day, and most commonly 
by night. And being demanded what mischiefe he 
caused any of the said spirits to do, he answered never 
any, onely hee sent his beare Spirit to provoke the 
maid-servant of Mr. Say of Molmesworth, to steale 
victualls for him out of her Master's house, which she 
did, and this Examinate received the same. 
The marke of 
John Winnicke 

Kob. Bernard. 

He was hanged, 1646. 

Eight years before this — namely, in 1638 — Frances 
Moore had a black puppy imp of Margaret Simson 
of Great Catworth, which she called Pretty, and whose 
office was to harm cattle. Then Goodwife Weed gave 
her a thing like a white cat, called Tissy, saying, if 
she would deny God and affirm the same by her blood, 
to whomsoever she sent this cat, and cm'sed, would die. 
So she cursed William Foster, who, sixteen years ago 
would have hanged two of her children because they 
offered to take a piece of bread ; and he died : but she 



336 THE WITCHES OF ENGLAND. 

could not remember what the cat imp did to him. Poor 
old creature! such naive little bits of truth and 
scientific direction come out in the midst of all the wild- 
ness and raving of the *' examined !" — such little quiet 
bits of unconscious common sense, to redeem the whole 
account from the mere maunderings of lunacy ! Frances 
Moore did not remember what her imp did to William 
Foster, yet she went on to say that she got tired of 
having them about her, and killed them both a year 
since ; but they haunted her still, and when she was 
apprehended crept up her clothes and tortured her so 
that she could not speak. 

Elizabeth Chandler, widow, had something that came 
to her in a *' puffing and roaring manner," and that now 
hurt her sorely. She denied that she ever spoiled 
Goodwife Darnell's furmety, but Goodwife Darnell, by 
causing her to be ducked, she did heartily desire to be 
revenged on. She had been troubled with these roaring 
things for a quarter of a year, and had two imps 
besides, one called " Beelzebub," and the other " Trul- 
libub." This she denied when asked, while sane and 
awake, saying that " Beelzebub was a logg of wood 
and Trullibub a stick." But the neighbours testified 
against her, so her denial went for naught. 

Ellen Shepheard had four iron-grey rat imps that 
sucked her ; and Anne Desborough had two — mouses — 
Tib and Jone, one brown and the other white. She had 
been told to forsake God and Christ, and that she would 
then have her will on men and cattle ; as she did, and 
got her mouse imps in consequence. 

Jane Wallis saw a man in black clothes, about six 
weeks since, as she was making her bed. She bid him 
civilly good morning, and asked him his name. He 
told her it was " Blackeman," and, in turn, asked her if 



I 



THE HUNTINGDON IMPS. 337 

she was poor. Yes, she said " she was." Then he 
would send her two imps said he, Grissel and Grreedi- 
gut, that should do an}i:hing for her she would. At this 
moment, Jane, looking up, saw he had ugly feet, and 
was fearful ; still more fearful when he became at one 
moment bigger and at another less, and then suddenly 
vanislied. Grissel and Greedigut came in the shajDe 
of " dogg-es, with great brisles of hogges hair upon their 
backs." They said they came from Blackeman to do 
whatever she might command : and sometimes all three 
of them — the two dogs and the man — brought her two 
or thi'ee shillings at a time ; and once they robbed a 
man and pulled him from his horse. 

On September 25, 1645,* Joan Walliford confessed 
before the major and other jurates, " that the divell, 
about seven yeares agoe did appeare to her in the shape 
of a little dog, and bid her to forsake God and leane to 
him ; who replied, that she was loath to forsake him." 
Still, she Avished to be revenged on Thomas Letherland 
and Mary Woodrufe, now his wife ; and as " Bunne," 
the devil, promised she should not lack, and did actually 
send her money, she knew not whence — sometimes a 
shilKng and sometimes eightpence, " never more " — 
devil-worship did not seem such a bad trade after all. 
She further said that her retainer, Bunne, once carried 
Thomas Gardler out of a window ; and that twenty years 
ago she promised her soul to the devil, and that he 
wrote the covenant between them in her blood, pro- 
mising to be her servant for that space of time, which 
time was now almost expired; that Jane Hot, Eliza- 
beth Harris, and Joan Argoll, were her fellows ; that 
EKzabeth Harris curst the boat of one John Woodcott, 
^* and so it came to passe ;" that Goodwife Argoll, 

* Tract. 

z 



338 THE WITCHES OF ENGLAND. 

curst Mr. Major and Jolin Mannington, and so it came 
to pass in these cases too ; and that Bunne had come 
to her twice since in prison, and sucked her " in the 
forme of a muce." So poor Joan Walliford was 
hanged, and at the place of execution exhorted all 
good people to take warning by her, and not to suffer 
themselves to be deceived by the divell, neither for 
love of money, malice, or anything else, as she had 
done, but to sticke fast to God ; for if she had not first 
forsaken God, God would not have forsaken her. 

Joan Cariden, widow, said that about three quarters 
of a year since, " as she was in the bed about twelve or 
one of the clocke in the night, there lay a * rugged 
soft thing ' upon her bosome which was very soft, and 
she thrust it off with her hand; and she saith that 
when she had thrust it away she thought God forsooke 
her, and she could never pray so well since as she 
could before ; and further saith that shee verily thinks 
it was alive." On a second examination she said that 
the divell came to her in the shape of a " black rugged 
Dog in the night time, and crept into the bed to her, 
and spake to her in a mumbling tongue." Two days 
after she made further revelations of how " within 
these two dales," she had gone to Goodwife Pantery's 
house, where were other good wives, and where the 
divell sat at the upper end of the table. 

Jane Hot said that a thing like a " hedg-hog " had 
usually visited her for these twenty years. It sucked 
her in her sleep, and pained her, so that she awoke : 
and lay on her breast, when she would strike it off. It 
was as soft as a cat. On coming into the gaol she was 
very urgent on the others to confess, but stood out sturdily 
for her own innocence ; sa}dng, " that she would lay 
twenty shillings that if she was swum she would sink." 



THE HUNTINGDON IMPS. 339 

She was swum and she floated ; whereat a gentleman 
asked her " how it 'was possible that she could be so 
impudent as not to confesse herselfe?" to whom she 
answered, '' That the Divell went with her all the way, 
and told her that she should sinke ; but when she was 
in the Water he sat upon a Crosse beame, and laughed 
at her." " Tliese three were executed mt Munday last,^' 
says the tract in emphatic itahcs. 

It now came to the turn of Elizabeth Harris. She 
said that nineteen years ago the devil came to her in 
the form of a muse (mouse) and told her she should be 
revenged. And she was revenged on all who offended 
her ; on Goodman Chilman, who said she had stolen a 
pigge, and who therefore she wished might die — and her 
Impe destroyed him ; on Goodman Woodcot, in whose 
High (hoy?) her son had been drowned, when " she 
wished that God might be her revenger, which was her 
watchword to the Divell " — and the hoy was cast away, as 
she conceived, in consequence of her wish. And did not 
Joan AVilliford's imp tell her that " though the Boate 
went chearfully oute it should not come so chearfuUy 
home ?" She said fm^ther that sundry good wives, named, 
had " ill tongues ;" and that she had made a covenant 
with the devil, written in the blood which she had 
scratched with her nails from out her breast. 

Alexander Sussums of Melford, Sussex, said he had 
things which drew his marks, and that he could not 
help being a witch, for all his kindred were naught 
— his mother and aunt hanged, his grandmother burnt, 
and ten others questioned and hanged. At Faver- 
sham about this time, three witches were hanged, 
one of whom had an imp-dog, Bun ; and on the 9th of 
September * Jane Lakeland was burnt at Ipswich for 

* ' The Laws against Witches.' Published by Authority, 1645. 



340 THE WITCHES OF ENGLAND. 

having bewitclied to death her husband, and Mrs. Jen- 
nings' maid, who once refused her a needle and dunned 
her for a shilling. Jane Lakeland had contracted with 
the devil twenty years ago. He came to her when 
between sleeping and waking, speaking to her in a 
hollow voice, and offering her her will if she would 
covenant with him. To which she, assenting, he then 
stroke his claw into her hand and with her blood wrote 
out the covenant. She had bewitched men and women 
and cows and com, and sunk ships, and played all the 
devilries of her art, but remained ever unsuspected, 
holding the character of a pious woman, and going 
regularly to church and sacrament. She had three 
imps — two little dogs and a mole — and Hopkins burnt 
her as the best way of settling the question of her sanity 
or disease. 

It would have been well for all these poor people if 
their respective judges — Sir Matthew Hale included — 
had had only as much liberality and common sense as 
Mr. Gaule, the minister of Stoughton in Huntingdon- 
shire ; for though Gaule was no wise minded to give 
up his belief either in the devil or in witches, he utterly 
repudiated Matthew Hopkins and his tribe and his ways, 
and condemned his whole manner of proceeding, from 
first to last. He preached against him, and when he 
heard a rumour of his visiting Stoughton he strongly 
opposed him, whereupon Matthew wrote this insolent 
letter, which Mr. Graule printed as a kind of preface 
to his book of " Select Cases," put out soon after. 

" My Service to yom^ Worship presented. I have 
this Day received a letter, &c., to come to a To\vn 
called Great Stoughton, to search for evil disposed 
Persons, called Witches (though I heare your Minister 
is farre against us through Ignorance:) I intend to 



THE HUNTINGDON IMPS. 341 

come the sooner to lieare his singular Judgement in the 
Behalfe of such Parties ; I have known a Minister in 
Suffolk preach as much against this Discovery in a 
Pulpit, and forced to recant it, (by the Committee) in 
the same place. I much marvaile such evil Members 
should have any (much more any of the Clergy) who 
should dayly preach Terrour to convince such Offenders^ 
stand up to take their Parts, against such as are Com- 
plainants for the King and Sufferers themselves, with 
theii' Families and Estates. I intend to give your Towne 
a visite suddenly. I am to come to Kimbolton this 
Week, and it shall be tenne to one, but I will come to 
your Town first, but I would certainly know afore, 
whether your Town affords many Sticklers for such 
Cattell, or willing to give and afford as good Welcome 
and Entertainment, as other where I have beene, else I 
shall wave your Shire, (not as yet beginning in any 
Part of it myself) and betake me to such Places, where 
I doe, and may persist without Controle, but with 
Thanks and Kecompense. So I humbly take my leave 
and rest, Your Servant to be Commanded, 

^^ Matthew Hopkins." 

I have not been able to find what was the result of 
this letter, but I do not suppose that Hopkins, who was 
a great coward like all tyrants, cared to brave even the 
small danger of one minister's opposition, not knowing 
how many " sticklers for such cattle " might be at his 
back. In his xipology, or " Certaine Queries An- 
swered, which have been and are likely to be objected 
against Matthew Hopkins, in his way of finding out 
Witches," he says that "he never went to any towne or 
place, but they rode, writ, or sent often for him, and 
were (for ought he knew) glad of him ;" and if this was 



342 THE WITCHES OF ENGLAND. 

true, Mr. Gaule most likely was rid of him at Great 
Stougiiton, and one rood of English land left undefiled. 
Besides, his hands were full elsewhere ; for when we 
think that at Bury St. Edmunds eighteen persons were 
hanged on one day alone, and a hundred and twenty more 
left lying in prison, all through his instrumentality, 
we must imagine that he had enough to do in places 
where he was caressed and desired, not to forbear 
troubling those where he was abhorred and might run 
some danger. 



MR. CLARK'S EXAMPLES. 

A few other men, too, were about as sane as Mr. Gaule 
on this maddest of all mad subjects. Mr. Clark, a 
minister — and the ministers were generally the worst — 
had a marvellous allowance of common sense, remem- 
bering the times. A certain parishioner of his cried out 
that she was grievously beset by a neighbour who came 
in the spirit, that is, as an apparition, to teaze and tor- 
ment her. Mr. Clark, the minister, knew the accused 
woman, and believed in her innocency ; but it happened 
one day, by one of those cmious coincidences which, by- 
the-bye, are so often exaggerated into far more signi- 
ficance than they deserve, that the suspected woman 
while milldng her cow was struck by it on the forehead, 
and natm-ally fell a-bleeding. At that moment, or said 
to be at that moment, her " spectre " appeared to the 
afflicted person, and she, pointing out the place where 
it stood, desired some of those who were with her to 
strike at it. They did so, and she said they fetched 
blood. Hereupon a posse of them went to the supposed 
witch, and found her with her forehead bleeding, just 



ME. CLAEK'S EXAMPLES. 343 

as tlie afflicted had said. There was no question now 
of doubt, and they rushed off to Mr. Clark to tell them 
what they had seen, and demand that she be put to the 
proof. Mr. Clark went to the woman and asked what 
had made her forehead bleed ? She told him, a blow from 
her cow's horn ; " whereby he was satisfy'd that it was a 
Design of Satan to render an innocent person suspected." 
x\iiother instance of the same kind of thing happened 
at Cambridge. A man believed that a certain widow 
sent her imps, as cats, to bewitch and torment him. 
One night as he lay in bed one of these imps came 
within reach, and he struck it on the back : when it 
vanished away, as was to be expected. The next day 
the man sent to inquire of his old enemy, and found 
that she had a sore back ; at which he rejoiced exceed- 
ingly, having now in his hands the clew which would 
guide him to revenge and her to justice and the 
scaffold. But Mr. Day, her surgeon, stopped his triumph 
before it was ripe, and cut the clew before it had spun 
out ; telling him that the sore back was nothing but a 
bon, which had gathered, headed, and healed, like any 
other boil, and that it could have had no connexion 
whatever with the blow which he had so valiantly 
given the cat-imp when in bed. So this bit of cruelty 
was put a stop to, and the poor old creature, with a boil 
on her back, slept her last sleep unhastened by the 
hangman. Another wretched being who had been kept 
without sleep or food for twenty-four hours, pricked, 
tried, and tortured into a state of temporary imbecility, 
at last confessed to her imp Nan ; but a gentleman in 
the neighbom'hood, very indignant at the folly and 
barbarity of the whole thing, rescued the poor victim, 
and made her eat some meat and go to sleep. 
When she woke up she said she knew nothing of what 



344 THE WITCHES OF ENGLAND. 

she had confessed, but that she had a pullet which she 
sometimes called Nan, and which of a surety was no 
imp, but an honest little hen that had to lay good eggs 
some day, and be eaten at table when her work was 
done. 



THE NEWCASTLE PRICKEES. 

Hopkins was not the only one of his trade in England, 
for Ealph Gardner, in his " England's Grievance Dis- 
covered" (1655), speaks of two prickers, Thomas Shovel 
and Cuthbert Nicholson, who, in 1649 and 1650, were 
sent by the Newcastle magistrates into Scotland, there to 
confer with a very able man ia that line, and bring him 
back to Newcastle. They were to have twenty shillings, 
but the Scotchman three pounds, per head of all they 
could convict, and a free passage there and back. \ATien 
these wretches got to any town — for they tried all the 
chief market towns of the district — the crier used to go 
round with his bell, desiring " aU people that would bring 
in any complaint against any woman for a witch, they 
should be sent for and tryed by the person appointed." 
As many as thirty women were brought at once into the 
Newcastle town-hall, stript, pricked, and twenty-seven 
set aside as guilty. This said witch-finder told Lieut.- 
Colonel Hobson that "he knew women, whether they 
were witches or no, by then- looks ; and when the said 
person was searching of a personable and good-like 
woman, the said Colonel replyed and said, Surely this 
woman is none, and need not be tried ; but the Scotch- 
man said she was, for all the Town said she was, and 
therefore he would try her : and presently, in sight of 
all the people, laid her body naked to the Waste, with 
lier cloaths over her head, by which Fright and Shame 



THE NEWCASTLE PRICKEES/ 345 

all her blond contracted into one part of her body, and 
then he ran a Pin into her Thigh, and then snddenly let 
her Coats fall, and then demanded whether she had 
nothing of his in her body, but did not bleed, but she, 
being amazed, replied little, and then he put his hand 
up her coats and pulled out the pin and set her aside 
as a guilty person and child of the Devil, and fell to try 
others, whom he made guilty. Lieut.- Colonel Hobson, 
perceiving the alteration of the foresaid woman by her 
blood settling in her right parts, caused that woman to 
be brought again, and her cloaths pulled up to her 
Thigh, and required the Scot to run the pin in the same 
place, and then it gushed out of blood, and the said Scot 
cleared her, and said she was not a child of the Devil." 
If this Scotch witch-finder had not been stopped he 
would have found half the women in the north country 
witches ; at last Henry Ogle got hold of him, and " re- 
quired Bond of him to answer the Sessions ;" but he got 
away to Scotland, and so escaped for the time. Fifteen 
women lay in prison, charged by him, and were executed 
— all protesting their innocence ; and " one of them, by 
name Margaret Brown, beseeched God that some re- 
markable sign might be seen at the time of their execu- 
tion, to evidence then innocency ; and as soon as ever 
she was turned off the Ladder her blood gushed out 
upon the people to the admiration of the beholders." 
Which touching little history we must relegate to the 
realms of fable and delusion, like others just as sad and 
supernatural. This precious wretch (was it John Kin- 
caid ?) was hung in Scotland, when the magistrates and 
people had got tned of him and his cruelty, and at " the 
gallows he confessed that he had been the death of two 
hundred and twenty men and women in England and 
Scotland, simply for the sake of the twenty shillings 



346 THE WITCHES OF ENGLAND. 

a head blood-money." Truly it was time for brave Ealph 
Crardner to write his bold and scorching "England's 
(xrievance Discovered," when such monstrous crimes as 
these might be done without even the colour of a mon- 
strous law. 

In " Sykes's Local Eecords " mention is made of a 
curious little entry in the parish books of Gateshead, 
near Newcastle : " Paid as M'"^^ Watson's when the 
Justices call to examine witches, 3^ 4*^ ; for a graue for a 
mtch, 6^; for trying the witches, £1. 5." This was 
in 1649, in which year Jean Martin, "the myller's wyfe 
of Chattim," was executed for a witch, and the autho- 
rities of Bermck sent for the witch-finder to come and 
try witches there, promising that no violence should 
be done him by the townspeople. In the parish register 
of Hart, under the date of July 28, 1582, the office of 
Master Chancellor against Allison Lawe, of Hart, was 
brought into requisition. Allison was "a notourious 
sorcerer and enchanter," but was pulled up in the midst 
of her evil career, and sentenced to a milder punishment 
than she would have had a century later. Notorious 
witch and enchanter as she was, all she had to suffer 
was open penance once in the market-place at Durham, 
with a paper on her head setting forth her offences, once 
in Hart church, and once in Norton chm'ch ; but what 
was the award to Janet Bainbridge and Jannet Allinson, 
of Stockton, " for asking counsell of witches, and resort- 
ing to Allison Lawe for the cure of the sicke," we are 
not told. The madness which possessed all men's minds 
in the next century had not then beg-un to rage : the 
storm that was to burst over the world was then giving 
forth only its warning mutterings, and it was reserved 
for a later age, with all its progress in art and science 
and freedom of thought and religious knowledge, to lay 



THE WITCH IN THE BRAKE. 347 

the coping-stone to tlie most monstrous temple of 
iniquity which fear has ever raised to ignorance. It is 
a humiliating thought ; humiliating, too, the milder 
phases of this same fury which have so often possessed 
society ; but it must be remembered that, though each 
wave of the tide recedes, each succeeding wave dashes 
farther over the reach, and the long lines of sea- 
wrack mark the point of progress as well as the point 
of declension. 

THE WITCH IN" THE BRAKE.* 

At Droitwich, iti Worcestershire, a boy, looking for 
his mother's cow, saw a bush in a brake move as if 
something was there. Thinking it to be his mother's 
cow he went to the place, but found no cow, only an 
old woman who cried " Ooh !" and so frightened the 
lad that he could not speak intelligibly. But no one 
knew what he meant by his strange mouthings and 
mutterings, until one day, seeing the old woman eating 
porridge before Sir Edward Barret's door, he rushed 
up to her, and flung her porridge in her face, and 
otherwise behaved violently and lLL The neighbours, 
thinking there was something in it, apprehended her 
as a witch, and took her to the Checker Prison. At 
night, the mother of the boy, hearing a great noise 
overhead, ran up stairs and found her son with the leg 
of a form in his hand, fighting furiously with something 
in the window; but what it was she could not see. 
He then put on his clothes and ran to the prison, midway 
recovering his speech. When he got there he found 
that the gaoler had kept the witch without food or sleep 
till she would say the Lord's Prayer and " God bless 
* ' Collection of Modem Relations.* 



348 THE WITCHES OF ENGLAND. 

the boy:" which pious exercise she had completed 
at the very moment when his speech was restored. 
When the boy complained to the gaoler of his negli- 
gence in letting her out to hurt and annoy him, the 
gaoler answered that he had kept her very safe. 
" Nay," says the boy, " for she came and sat in my 
chamber window, and grinned at me ; whereupon I took 
up a form and banged her:" the gaoler looked and 
they found the marks. She was a Lancashire woman, 
who, when Duke Hamilton was defeated, and there 
was a scarcity in those parts, " wandred abroad to get 
victuals." She was hanged, poor half-starved vagrant ! 



THE TEWKESBURY WITCH THAT SUCKED THE SOW. 

About the same time a Tewkesbury man had a sow 
and a litter of pigs : the sow with abundance of milk, 
but the pigs lean and miserable. He concluded that 
something which had no right to it came and robbed 
his piglings of their milk; so he watched; and sm^e 
enough a " black four-footed Creature like a Pole-Cat " 
came and beat away the pigs and sucked the sow ; but 
the farmer got a pitchfork and ran it into the thigh of 
the pole-cat, which struggled so mightily that, though it 
was nailed to the ground, it got away and made off. 
^\Tien he asked some neighbours, standing near, what 
they had seen, they said they had only seen a wench go 
by, with blood falling from her as she went. They 
caught the wench and searched her, and, sure enough, 
found her wounded as the man said he had wounded 
the thing sucking his sow. She was apprehended, 
tried, and hanged, because she made herself into a 
creature like a black pole-cat, and went and sucked the 



THE DEVIL'S DELUSION. 349 

farmers' sows. " These two Kelations, I received from 
a Person of Quality, of good Ability and of unquestion- 
able Credit, who was present at both the Tryals, and 
AYrote them in his Presence, and afterwards read them 
to him ; and he assured me they were very true in all 
the Particulars, as they were given in Evidence," says 
the author of the *' Collection of Modern Kelations " 
complacently. 

THE DEVIL'S DELUSION.* 

That same year, in the month of July, a man and 
woman, John Palmer and Elizabeth Knott, were hanged 
at St. Albans for curing folks of disease without the 
leave and license of the authorities, and by the aid of 
the devil. John made some curious revelations. He 
said, first of all, that Marsh of Dunstable was the head 
of the Avhole college of witches, and that he could do 
more than all the rest. Then he went on to say that 
he, John Palmer, had held a blood covenant with the 
devil for sixty years, and that he bore his brand ; also' 
that he had two imps, " George," a dog, and " Jezabell," 
a woman, who did what he would. He had seduced to 
himself and his arts Elizabeth Knott, his kinswoman ; 
and both together they made a clay picture of good- 
wife Pearls of Norton, which they put under some 
embers, and as the picture consumed away, so did 
goodwife Pearls — miserably and fatally. This was out 
of revenge for hanging a lock on his door because 
he did not pay his rent. Then he sent '^ George " 
to kill Cleaver's horses ; and Elizabeth killed John 
Laman's cow^ by sending her imp, which was a cat. 
The cat had promised that she should have all she 
* 'The Devil's Delusion.' 1649. 



8S0 THE WITCHES OF ENGLAND. 

wanted, save money ; but poor Elizabeth Knott did not 
add that puss had promised to give them a halter and 
the gallows at the end of their revenge : which would 
have been the only truth in the whole relation. She 
killed Laman's cow, she said, because she had been teazed 
for money due to him, or rather to his wife. When she 
was swum, her cat imp came up to her and sucked 
upon her breast ; so she said, poor raving creature : 
but when she was taken out of the water she never saw 
it more. Palmer also confessed that once he lay as a 
toad in the way of a young man he hated, to get himself 
hurt. The young man kicked the toad, and Palmer 
had a sore shin ; but he bewitched the youth, so that 
he languished for years in woe and torment. Then is 
given the list of all the people bedevilled and bewitched 
by these two persons, and the account is signed^ ** Yours, 
Misodaimon." Misodaimon would have done better if 
he could have called himself Philalethes. 



THE WITCH OF WAPPING. 

In April, 1652, Joan Peterson, the witch of Wapping, 
was hanged at Tyburn La just retribution of her sins. 
Joan had long had an ugly name in that mean house of 
hers on the small island near Shadwell; for she was 
known to heal the sick in a manner more suggestive 
than satisfactory, and she had a black beast that used to 
suck her : which every one knew was the art and func- 
tion of an imp. That this was true of her who could 
doubt, for a man said he had seen it, and it took even 
less direct testimony than this to prove a woman a 
witch. Let the sceptical read the " Country Justice " 
to see what subtle threads were strong enough for a 



THE WITCH OF WAPPING. 851 

witcli-lialter ! One evening a neighbour woman was 
watching by the cradle of a child who was strangely 
distempered. In jumped a black cat, coming no one 
knew whence, and stopped her cradling. This Avoman, 
and another watching with her, flung the fire-fork at 
the cat, when it vanished as quickly as it had come. 
In an hour's time it came again from the other side : 
one of the women raised her foot and kicked it ; and 
immediately her foot and leg swelled, and were very 
sore and painful. Then, terrified, they called the mas- 
ter of the house, told him that they could not watch in a 
place so beset with evil spirits, and left him and the child 
to get on as they could. On theu' way home they lighted 
on a baker, who told them that he had just met a big 
black cat which had affrighted him so that his hair 
stood all on end ; and when the women told their tale, 
he said " on his conscience he thought it was Mother 
Peterson, for he had met her going towards the island 
a little while before." When on his oath, under exami- 
nation, this valiant baker declared that he had never 
been afraid of any cat before in his life ; and to a 
further question answered, " No, he had never seen 
such a cat before, and he hoped in God he should 
never see the like again." But what connection old 
Joan Peterson was assumed to have with this mysterious 
black cat remains a mystery to this day : it was none 
to the judge and jury, who condemned her to be hanged 
with safe and tranquil minds. 



352 THE WITCHES OF ENGLAND. 



THE aEOLOGICAL BEWITCHMENT.* 

In April, 1652, Mary EUins, aged nine years, daugh- 
ter of Edward Ellins, of Evesham in the county of 
Worcester, was playing in the fields with some neigh- 
bours' children. They were gathering cowslips in a 
pretty innocent way, in which it would have been well 
if they had been contented to remain ; but on passing 
by a ditch they saw crouching therein one Catherine 
Huxley, an old woman of no very good repute, gene- 
rally supposed to be a witch of the worst kind, and quick 
at casting an evil eye when offended. The children 
seeing her, took up stones to throw at her, calling her 
" witch " and other opprobrious names ; whereat old 
Catherine cursed them, and especially Mary Ellins, who 
made herself conspicuous as the chief tormentor. Her 
curses had the desired effect. Mary went home, be- 
witched, and who but Catherine had done it? For 
ever from that day she had strange and troublesome 
passages with stones, so that it seemed as if the child 
had fed upon stones, and nothing but stones, of all 
kinds of geological formation. Scores of people went 
to see them : they were handled, and looked at, and 
reasoned about, and discussed, and yet so many as 
ever might come away, more still remained behind, 
and the supply was never failing. When Mary's 
extraordinary power of elaborating flint and granite 
and boulder and pebble in her young body had become 
troublesome and expensive, and the parents wanted to 
get rid of the whole concern, they undertook the pro- 
secution of old Catherine, and on this evidence alone, that 
she had cursed their daughter, and that their daughter had 
* Baxter. 



THE BURNING BEWITCHMENT. 353 

since then had extraordinary/ discharges of stones, tlie 
old woman was condemned and executed — hung up as 
a public show at AYorcester in the bonny summer 
months of 1652. As soon as she was hanged Mary had 
instant and complete relief ; and hid no more pebbles 
in her pockets to delude good, credulous, prayerful Mr. 
Baxter into the profound belief that she was be- 
witched. 

THE BURNING BEWITCHMENT.* 

Brightling of Sussex, too, where now we have our 
sea-side London, was under a cloud, with the devil in 
actual human form possessing the place and haunting 
good folk out of their proper wits ; for Joseph Crutten- 
den's house was bewitched, and they were sore holden 
how to restore the spirit of grace within it, and exorcise 
the spirit of evil. Joseph Cruttenden had a young 
servant girl, to whom one day came an old woman, 
unkno\\Ti, saying to her that sad calamities were coming 
on her master's family by-and-bye, but that she was not 
to speak of them to any one ; for he and his dame 
should be haunted, and their house fired and bewitched. 
She was to be particularly careful not to give warn- 
ing of this to any, for if she did, the devil would tear her 
in pieces. The girl kept her own counsel; of course 
she did ; there would have been no sport else : and that 
very night the troubles began. As Joseph and his wife 
lay ia bed, du't and dust and rubbish of all kinds were 
thrown at them, so that there was no way of escapuig 
the handfuls of filth flung fast and furiously, and all the 
doors and windows shook as with a storm, though the 
air was still outside. On another night the house was 

* Baxter's ' Certainty of the World of Spirits.' 

2 A 



354 THE WITCHES OF ENGLAND. 

set on fire in many places at once, flashing out like 
gunpowder ; and as fast as one corner was extinguished 
another began ; for they had no sooner trodden out the 
ashes and gone to another part, than they flamed up 
afresh, and they had all their work to do over again. 
Some said that a thing like a black bull was seen 
tumbling about in the flames ; but Mr. Baxter halts at 
this, and declines to endorse it. At another time the 
furniture was all flung about, and a wooden " tut " came 
flying through the air, and a horseshoe struck the man 
on the breast, and there was no peace night or day for 
the black bull, the fire, and all the other things beset- 
ting. And then the man confessed that he had been a 
thief long time agone, whereby Satan had this extra- 
ordinary power over him ; and the girl, despising the 
threat of the devil's tearing her to pieces, confessed to 
her mistress what the old woman had said. So the 
country was searched for an old woman answering the 
maid's description, and a poor old wretch was pitched 
upon as being most like. She was sent for and ex- 
amined — watched for twenty-four hours; but nothing 
seems to have come of it this time. The girl " thought" 
she was " like " the same woman as had spoken to her, 
yet declined to swear positively. But the old w^oman 
had a bad name. She had been suspected as a wdtch 
before, '' and been had to Maidstone to clear herself," 
which it seems she had done, for she got off, and had 
been liviug near Brightling ever since. She had a 
narrow escape now% for the country people were much 
excited against her, and naturally did not wish the pre- 
sence of one who could haunt their houses with fire and 
dirt, and a big black bull tumbling about at his will. 
Had the maid had one grain less of conscience, this 
nameless wretch would have closed her eartlily career a 



THE STEINGY MEAT. 355 

few years too soon ; as it was she got off, and " lived 
miserably about Biu'wast ever since." It was a small 
sign of gTace in tliat young jade that she would not 
swear away the life of an innocent woman to conceal 
her own cliildish tricks. It was not often that the 
accusing witnesses showed even this scant mercy to 
their victims, for the excitement of the game seemed 
to be in the largest amount of cruelty that could be 
perpetrated within the rules. ^ 



THE STEINGY MEAT * 

" Kent, the first Christian, last conquered, and one of 
the most flourishing and fruitful Provinces of England, 
is the Scene, and the beautiful Town of Maidstone, the 
Stage, whereon this Tragicall Story was publicly acted 
at Maidstone Assizes, last past." 

In this Christian province and most beautiful country, 
Anne Ashby, Anne Martyn, Mary Browne, Mildred 
Wright, and Anne Wilson, all of Cranbrooke, and 
Mary Eeade, of Lenham, were brought before Sir Peter 
Warburton, charged with " the Execrable and Diabolicall 
crime of Witchcraft." Anne Ashby, " who was the 
chiefe Actresse, and who had the greatest part in this 
Tragedy," and Anne Martyn were "confessing^' witches ; 
but their confessions did not amount to much, compared 

* * A Prodigious and Tragicall History of the Arraignment, Tryall, 
Confession, and Condemnation of six Witches at Maidstone, in Kent, 
at the Assizes held there in July, Fryday 30, tliis present year 1652. 
Before the Eight Honourable Peter Warburton, one of the Justices of 
the Common Pleas. Collected from the Observations of E. G. Gent, a 
learned Person, present at their Conviction and Condemnation, and 
digested by H. F. Gent.' London : Printed for Eichard Harper in 
Smithfield, 1652. 



356 THE WITCHES OF ENGLAND. 

with the more liighly spiced accounts of other witches. 
That they had both known the devil as a man, and in 
dishonesty and sin, was of course one of the chief items 
of their confession, as it was of most witches ; but Anne 
Ashby further informed the Bench that the devil had 
given them each a piece of flesh, which, whensoever 
they should touch, would give them their desires ; and 
that this piece of flesh was hid somewhere among the 
grass. As was proved : for upon search it was found. 
Of a sinewy substance and scorched was this redoubtable 
talisman, for it was both seen and felt by this Observator, 
E. G., and reserved for public view at the sign of the 
Swan in Maidstone. Anne Ashby had an imp too, 
called " Rug," which sometimes came out of her mouth 
like a mouse, and was of so malicious and venificall a 
nature that a certain groom belonging to Colonel Hum- 
frey's regiment, for sport, said, "Come Eug into my 
mouth,"" and the said groom was dead in a fortnight after : 
" as it is reported," adds E. G. with saving grace. Anne 
was hysterical, poor soul : and " in view of this Observa- 
tion, fell into an extasie before the Bench, and swell'd 
into a monstrous and vast bigness, screeching and crying 
out dolefully." When she recovered they asked her if 
she had been possessed by the devil at that time, to 
which she made answer " that she did not know that, 
but that her Spirit Rug had come out of her mouth 
like a mouse." After they were " cast " and judgment 
had been pronounced against them she and Anne 
Martyn pleaded that they were with child : but, being 
pressed on this point, they confessed that it was by no 
man of honest flesh and blood, but by the devil, their 
customary spouse. The plea was not suffered to stand. 
For proof against the rest, all that is recorded by E. G. 
is, that when pricked neither Mary Browne, nor Anne 



THE LOST WIFE. 357 

Wilson, nor yet Mildred Wright felt pain, or lost blood ; 

and that Mary Kead had a visible teat under her tongue 

which she did show to tliis Observator as well as to 

many others. But they were all hanged, at the common 

place of execution ; though some there were who wished 

that they might be burnt instead, for burning had such 

virtue, that it prevented the blood of a witch " becom- 

ming hereditary to her Progeny in the same evill, 

wluch by hanging is not." The hangers, however, | 

carried the day, and the blood of the progeny was left to I 

take its chance of hereditary evil. It was supposed that | 

these six witches, to whom were added five other per- I 

sons, had bewitched nine children, one man, and one j 

woman, lost five hundred pounds' worth of cattle, and r 

wrecked much corn at sea. i. 



THE LOST WIFE.* 

That same month and year saw a strange matter of 
witchcraft at W^arvvick. " In Warwick Town one Mrs. 
Katherine Atkins, a Mercer's Wife, standing at her Door 
on Saturday night, the 21 July 1652. A certain 
unknown Woman came to her and sayd, Mistris, pray 
give me two-pence, she answered, two-pences are not so 
plentifull, and that she would give her no Mony. Pray 
Mistress, sayd she, then give me that Pin, so she took 
the Pin off her sleeve and gave her, for which she was 
very thankfuU, and was going away. Mistress Atkins 
seeing her so thankfuU for a Pin, called her again, and 
told her if she would stay, she would fetch some victuals 

* A true Relation of one Mrs. Atkins, a Mercer's Wife in Warwick, 
who was strangely carried away from her house in July last, and hath 
not since been heard of. 



m 



858 THE WITCHES OF ENGLAND. 

for her, or give lier some thread, or something out of 
the shop. She answered, she would have nothing else, 
and bid a pox of her victuals, and swore (by God) say- 
ing. You shall be an hundred miles off within tliis 
week, when you shall want two-pence as much as I, and 
so she went grumbling away. 

" Hereupon the sayd Mistress Atkins was much 
troubled in mind, and did advise with some Friends what 
were best to be done in such a case, but receiving no re- 
solution from any one what to do, she attended the Event 
what might befall within such a time, and upon the 29 
of July she exprest to a kinsman, Mr. Nicholas Bikar, 
that she was much troubled about the forsayd businesse, 
but hoped the time was so much expired, that it would 
come to nothing. 

" But the sayd Thursday night, betwixt the hours of 
8 and 9, She, going into the Shop, and returning thence 
in the Entry adjoyning to the sayd Shop, she was im- 
mediately gone, by what means and whither we do not 
know, nor can we hear of upon enquiry made to this 
present. 

" The desire of her Husband and Friends is of all the 
Inhabitants of this Nation, That if they hear of any 
such Party in such a lost condition as is before ex- 
pressed. That there may be speedy Notice given thereof 
to her Husband in Warwick, and that all convenient 
Provisions, both of Horse and Mony may be made for 
the conveying of her to the place aforesayd, and such 
as shall take pains, or be at expences herein shall be 
sufiiciently recompenced for the same, with many 
thanks. 

" It's likewise desired that Ministers in London, and 
elsewhere, when the notice of these presents shall come, 
would be pleased to present her sad condition to God in 



DR. LAMB AND HIS DARLING. 359 

their severall Congi-egations. The truth hereof ^Ye 
testifie, whose names are subscribed. 

iEichard Yennour 
Hen. Butler, Ministers of Warwick. 
Josepli Fisher, Minister. 



DR. LAMB AND HIS DARLING.* 

Dr. Lamb, Buckingham's domestic physician in times 
past, and his maid Anne Bodenham, both met with a 
tragical fate, though not in the same year, for Dr. Lamb 
was brutally mmxlered for a conjuror and wizard by a 
mob in 1640, while Anne Bodenham was not executed 
until 1653. That Lamb was a terrible necromancer is 
testified by Kichard Baxter, in his ' World of Spirits,' a 
book " Avritten for the conyiction of Sadducees and 
Infidels," but which now would convince none but the 
weak or half crazed of anything beyond Kichard 
Baxter's own exceeding credulity and want of critical 
faculty. His story of Dr. Lamb's necromancy is so 
curious, it had better be given verbatim, for to translate 
would be to ruin it. 

" Dr. Lamb, who was killed by the -Mob for a Conjuror 
about 1640, met one Morning Sir Miles Sands and ]Mr. 
Barbor in the Street, and invited them to go and drink 
their Mornings Draught at his House : Discoursing about 
his Art, he told them that if they would hold their 
Tongues, and their Hands from medling mth any thing, 
he would shew them some Sport. So falling to his 
Practice in the middle of the Room springs up a Tree ; 
sone after appeared three little Fellows, with Axes on 

* Dr. George More's ' Antidote to Atheism,' Dr. Lamb's ' Darling.' 
By James Bower. 1653. 



360 THE WITCHES OF ENGLAND. 

their Shoulders, and Baskets in their Hands, who 
presently fell to work, cut down the Tree, and carried 
all away. But Mr. Barbor observing one Chip to fall 
on his Velvet Coat, he slips it into his Pocket, That 
Night when he and his Family were in Bed, and asleep, 
all the Doors and Windows in the House opened and 
clattered, so as to awaken and affright them all. His 
Wife said, Hiishand, you told me you was at Dr. Lamb's 
this I)ay, and I fear you medled with something. He 
repHed, I put a Chip into my Pochet. I pray you, said 
she, fiing it out, or we shall have no Quiet. He did so, 
and all the Windows and Doors were presently shut, 
and all quiet, so they went to sleep." 

With such powers of conjuration and sorcery as these, 
it is not surprising if Dr. Lamb's character tainted that 
of Anne Bodenham his maid ; for the very fact of their 
living together under the same roof was inimical enough 
to Anne's reputation. We hear nothing of her for some 
years, beyond that she lived near New Sarum, was 
married to one Edward Bodenham, "clothyer," and 
that she was eighty years of age at the time of her 
trial. So at least says Edmund Bower, in his " Doctor 
Lamb revived." But her getting into trouble at all 
proves that she had long lived under the suspicion 
of commonly practising witchcraft and sorcery; for 
Anne Styles, the accuser, had been backwards and 
forwards to her on her own account scores of times, and 
thought nothing of it ; neither was it considered won- 
derful when Mr. Mason, son-in-law of Eichard Goddard, 
Anne Styles's master, sent her to Anne Bodenham 
to learn how their lawsuit would turn. Bodenham, who 
had a knack of " foretelling things to come, and helping 
men to their stolen goods, and other such Hke feats," 
expressed no surprise, but at once began her conjura- 



DR. LAMB AND HIS DARLING. 361 

tions. " She took her staff, and there drew it about the 
house, making a kinde of a Circle, and then took a 
book, and carrying it over the Circle with her hands, 
and taking a green glasse, did lay it upon the book, 
and placed in the Circle an earthern Pan of Coals, 
wherein she threw something, which bm-ning caused a 
very noisome stink, and told the Maid she should not 
be afraid of what she should then see, for now they 
would come (they are the words she used), and so calling 
Belzebub, Tormentor, Satan, and Lucifer appear, there 
suddenly arose a very high wind, which made the house 
shake, and presently the back door of the house flying 
open, there came five Spirits, as the Maid supposed, in 
the likenesse of ragged Boyes, some bigger than others, 
and ran about the House, where she had drawn the staff : 
and the witch threw down upon the ground crums of 
bread, which the Spirits picked up, and leapt over the 
Pan of Coals oftentimes, which she set in the midst of 
the Circle, and a Dog and a Cat of the witches danced 
with them ; and after some time the witch looked again 
in her book, and threw some great white Seeds upon 
the ground, which the said Spirits picked up, and so in 
a short time the wind was laid and the witch going 
forth at the back door the Spirits vanished." After 
which Anne told the girl that Mr. Mason should 
demand fifteen hundred pounds, and one hundred and 
fifty pounds per annum of Mr. Goddard, and if it was 
denied he was to take the law and prosecute. For all 
Avhich Anne Bodenham received the sum of three 
shillings: little enough too, considering the charges 
she must have been at for noisome roots and magic 
lanthorns, not to speak of the chance of being haled off 
to prison whenever the maid Anne Styles might choose 
to accuse her. 



362 THE WITCHES OF ENGLAND. 

Another time Anne Styles was sent to her by Mrs. 
Goddarcl, to find where was hidden the poison which she 
said her two young step-daughters were designing to 
give her, but which Anne Styles herself had bought, as 
she said, by the witch's request. This Anne Boden- 
ham denied. The witch took her stick as before, going 
through the same forms of conjuration ; when on her 
adjuring " Belzebub, Tormentor, Lucifer, Satan," to 
appear, there came out of the mist first a little boy, who 
then turned into a snake, and then into " a shagged dog 
with great eyes, which went about in the Cii'cle." And 
after she had burnt her noisome herbs again, and looked 
in her Magic book — her Book of Charms as she called 
it — she took a glass and showed in that " Mistress 
Sarah Goddard's Chamber, the colour of the Curtains, 
and the bed tm^ned up the wrong way, and under that 
part of the bed where the Bolster laye she shewed the 
poison in a white paper." It was no discredit to maid 
or witch that this poisoning matter was found a mere 
suspicion and delusion, and that the young ladies neyer 
designed to poison their mother-in-law ; though she, on 
the other hand, sent to Bodenham for charms and 
poisons against them. This time Anne got vervain and 
dill, which the little ragged boys (spectres, or spirits, 
or imps) gathered for her, in return for which she threw 
them bread which they ate, dancing about, then vanished 
on their mistress reading in her book. The witch gave 
the maid the leaves powdered, and dried — one packet 
of each — while, in a third packet, she put the parings 
of her nails ; all of which the maid was to give to her 
mistress. The powder was to be put into Mistresses 
Sarah and Anne Goddard's drink or broth, to give them 
hideous indigestion rather too coarsely expressed for 
modern reading • the leaves were to rub about the rim 



I 



DR. LAMB AND HIS DARLING. 363 

of tlie pot, to make their teeth fall out of their heads ; 
and the paring of the nails to make them drunk and 
mad. But Mrs. Goddard only laughed when she got 
these charms, and said " they were brave things :" she 
did not use them, luckily for her ; though the young 
ladies would not have been much the worse, save for 
the white poison before mentioned. 

Anne Bodenham had taken a great fancy to this 
servant girl, and wanted her to live with her, telling 
her that she would teach her all she knew, and enable 
her to do as she did; asking her, too, whether she 
would go to London high or low : for if high she should 
be carried tln-ough the air and be there in two hom^s, if 
low she should be taken at Sutton's town end, and 
before, " unless she had help." When she thus sought 
to seduce the girl, Anne Styles asked what she could 
do, whereupon Bodenham incontinently appeared in the 
form of a great black cat, and lay along by the chim- 
ney ; but the gu-l being much frightened, she appeared 
in her own shape again, and tempted her no more. 
But first, before she would let her go, she made her 
swear to seal with her body and blood a vow that she 
would never discover what she had seen ; so she took 
her forefinger and pricked it, and filled a pen with the 
blood, and made her write in a book, one of the imps — 
like " great boys with long shagged black hair," this 
time — having his hand or claw on the witch's, while 
Anne Styles wrote. And when she had done writing, 
the witch said " Amen," and the maid said " Amen," 
and the spirits said " Amen " each : and the spirit gave 
the witch a bit of silver for the maid, which he first bit. 
The maid's hand touched his, and she found that his 
was cold. Then Bodenham stuck two pins in her head- 
dress, which she bid her keep, and be gone ; saying, *' I 



364 THE WITCHES OF ENGLAND. 

will vex the Gentlewoman well enough, as I did the 
man in Clarington Park; which I made walk about 
with a bundle of Pales on his back all night in a pond 
of water, and could not lay them down till the next 
morning." The piece of silver, and the hole in her 
forefinger, the maid showed the judge and jury in the 
trial ; and both were held to be conclusive evidence 
against Dr. Lamb's unfortunate "Darling." How far 
Anne Styles may be believed is not difficult to deter- 
mine ; for as to the conjurations about poisoning Mrs. 
Goddard, it came out that she, the maid, had gone to 
the apothecary's for an ounce of arsenic ; and then set 
abroad the report that the two young ladies had bought 
it for the purpose of poisoning their step-mother. As 
the young ladies were not disposed to sit down quietly 
under this suspicion, they had the report sifted to the 
bottom, and Anne Styles fled in fear ; which was the 
meaning of the mtch's demanding how she would like to 
go to London — high or low — by witch's art, or justice's 
power. Mr. Chandler, Mr. Goddard's son-in-law, pur- 
sued her, and overtook her at Sutton-town end ; when, 
to save herself from the unpleasant consequences of her 
various misdeeds, beginning with stealing a silver 
spoon and ending with buying arsenic, she made this 
'' confession," which was safety to her but death to old 
Anne. Anne earnestly and passionately denied every 
word the girl said: whereupon Anne Styles, to give 
greater colour to her story, fell into fits, so strong that 
six men could not hold her. She was drawn up high 
into the air — so at least runs the report — her feet as 
high as the spectators' breasts; and she had scuffles 
with a black man with no head, who came and tumbled 
her about, as a little boy deposed. The little boy was 
sleeping in the same room with her, and he said 



DR. LAMB AND HIS DARLING. 365 

that tlie black spiiit came to her, and wanted her soul, 
but the maid answered her soul was none of hers to 
give ; that he had got her blood abeady, but should 
never have her soul ; and after a tumbling and throw- 
ing of her about rarely, he vanished away. At another 
time the witch was brought to the maid suddenly, when 
she instantly closed her eyes and fell back in so deep a 
sleep that they could not by any means awaken her ; but 
so soon as the witch had gone, she woke up of herself, 
and was quite well. Anne Bodenham was condemned 
to die, and there was no help for her ; but when sentence 
was passed, Anne Styles fell to bitter weeping and 
wailing, lamenting her own wickedness, and willing 
that the witch should be reprieved, if possible to the 
law. This was taken as a sign of her sweet and loving 
Christian spirit of forgiveness ; we, who read such signs 
more clearly by the light of a better knowledge, know 
that it meant simply the weak pity of a selfish conscience, 
grieving for its sin, yet afraid to retract and make 
amends. Beside all this evidence, and its lies, Anne 
Bodenham had a tame toad which she wore in a green 
bag round her neck ; and she had a great deal of 
natural clairvoyance and mesmeric power ; and she was 
evidently a highly superstitious woman, who believed in 
her own powers, and was not unwilling to aid them by 
a little extra supernatnralism and good mechanical 
tricks. But she would confess to no witchcraft ; knew 
nothing of a Red Book half written over in blood, which 
red book with its bloody wTiting contained a catalogue 
of those who had sold themselves to the devil ; though 
she acknowledged that she had a Book of Charms, 
much as a servant maid of to-day might have a Book of 
Dreams : and that she could say the Creed backwards 
as well as forwards ; and that she sometimes prayed to 



3GG THE WITCHES OF ENGLAND. 

the planet Jupiter. The time-honoured belief in astro- 
logy and the power of the planets might well linger in 
the brain of an old country woman, who had a smatter- 
ing of knowledge far beyond her station, and who had 
dabbled in mechanics and the art of conjuring ; who 
could not, moreover, understand her own sensitive con- 
dition ; and who had the alternative, as one of the wit- 
nesses said, of passing for a witch or a woman of God. 
The judge and jury had a very distinct idea as to which 
category she ought to be placed in ; and fully believed 
what James Bower reports, that she could turn herself 
into a "mastive Dog, a black Lyon, a white Bear, a 
Woolf, a Monkey, a Horse, a Bull, and a Calf." Such a 
woman as this had no business here on this solid earth, 
so she was hanged at Salisbury, 1653, dying very hard 
and completely crazed. Before the hour came she 
wrote a letter to her husband desiring him never to live 
in his own house again ; and she asked the woman who 
was to " shroud " her, to root up all her garden herbs 
and flowers when she should be dead ; and she clamoured 
for a knife to stick into her heart ; and she wanted to 
die drunk, calling for beer on her way to execution, and 
giving her gaolers much trouble to hold her in at all ; 
and she would have no psalm sung, and no prayer 
read, and would forgive none of them, but cursed them 
all fiercely as she stood on the rungs of the ladder 
despairing and defying. So miserably she died, poor 
old wretch ! and Anne Styles never looked up again 
into the fair face of heaven without the stain of blood 
across her hand, and the brand of Cain on her brow. 



367 



THE SPEIGHTLY LAD OF SOMEESETSHIRE * 

One certain Sunday afternoon, in November 1657, 
Eichard Jones, " a sprightly youth of twelve," living at 
Shepton Mallet, in Somersetshire, being left at home 
alone, and looking abroad as sprightly youth will, 
saw an old woman of the place, by name Jane Brooks, 
look in at the window. He went to the door to see 
what she wanted, when she asked him to give her a 
piece of "close bread," and she would give him an 
apple. He did so, and she thanked him, stroked him 
down the right side, shook him by the hand, and bade 
him good night. When the father and our coz. Gibson 
came back, they found the sprightly youth ill, and 
complaining of pain in the right side. He continued 
in the same state through the night, and on the follow- 
ing day became much worse, falling into fits of speech- 
lessness, &c., immediately after having roasted and eaten 
the apple which Jane Brooks had given him. He then 
told the father that an old woman of the place, name 
unknown but person remembered, had stroked his 
right side, and thus had caused his illness ; whereupon 
his father decided that all the women of Shepton 
Mallet should come to see him, and that in case he was 
in his fit, and not able to speak when the true witch 
came, he should give a "jogg," which would be suffi- 
ciently expressive. All the women of Shepton Mallet 
were brought in by tm^ns ; but the boy remained 
quiet until Jane Brooks appeared, when he fell into a 
fit, and was for some time unable to see or speak. 
Kecovering himself, " he gave his father the Item," and 
drew towards Jane. She was standing behind her two 
* Glanvil's ' Saducismus Triumpliatus.' 



368 THE WITCHES OF ENGLAND. 

sisters, but the boy singled her out and put his hand 
upon her ; which the father seeing, he flew on the poor 
creature, scratched her face " above her breath," and 
drew blood. After this rather rough manner of exor- 
cism, Master Richard Jones cried out that he was well, 
and condescended to remain well for seven or eight 
days. But at the end of this time, Alice Coward, 
sister to Jane, happening to meet him and to say, 
"How do you do, my Honey?" he fell ill again, and 
" cried out " on them without intermission. One Sunday 
he was in his fits, his father and cousin Gibson with him 
as usual, when he suddenly exclaimed that he "saw 
Jane Brooks there" — pointing- to the wall. Cousin 
Gibson at once struck a knife into the spot ; whereupon 
the sprightly youth cried, " father, couz Gibson hath 
cut Jane Brooks's hand, and 'tis Bloody." The father 
and Gibson on this went to the constable, " a discreet 
Person," and telling him what had happened, took him 
with them to Jane's house, where they found her sit- 
ting on a stool, with one hand over the other. After a 
few questions they drew her hand away, and found that 
which was underneath all bloody ; which appearance 
she explained avvay as well as she could, by saying that 
it was scratched with a great pin. This kind of thing 
going on for some time, the pitiful plot grew ripe for 
execution, and on the 8th of December Jane Brooks 
and her sister, Alice Coward, were taken to Castle Cary 
to be examined by the justices, Mr. Hunt and Mr. Cary. 
Here Richard performed all the usual tricks of the 
bewitched, lying speechless and motionless while the 
suspected women were in the room ; springing up into 
tetanic fits if they laid their hands upon him, or so 
much as looked towards him; bringing on himself, Jby his 
own will, convulsive fits and catalepsy, and many of the 



THE SPRIGHTLY LAD OF SOMEESETSHIRE. 869 

more violent symptoms of hysteria, and insisting that 
the two women came constantly to see him — as appa- 
ritions — "their Hands cold, their Eyes staring, and 
their Lips and Cheeks looking pale." " In this 
manner on a Thursday about Noon, the Boy being 
newly laid in his Bed, Jane Brooks and Alice Coward 
appeared to him, and told him that what they had 
begun they could not perform. But if he would say no 
more of it, they would give him Money, and so put a 
Twopence into his Pocket. After which they took him 
out of his Bed and laid him on the ground and vanished, 
and the Boy was found by those that came next into the 
Koom lying on the Floor as if he had been dead." 
This twopence had odd properties. A\nien put upon 
the fire and made hot, the boy fell ill ; when taken out 
and cooled, he was all right again. The trick was tried 
in the presence of many, and was found to answer 
admirably. Between the 8th of December and the 
17th of February, he practised another variation of the 
same air. " Divers persons at sundry times " heard a 
croaking, as of a toad, proceed from the boy, and 
though they held a candle to his face they could not 
discern any movement of tongue, teeth, or lips. And 
this croaking as of a toad repeated incessantly, " Jane 
Brooks, x\lice Coward, Jane Brooks, Alice Coward." 
On the 25th of February he performed his greatest feat 
of all ; or was reported to have done so — which did quite 
as well in those days ; for Kichard Isles's wife said she 
saw him raised up from the ground, mounting gTadually 
higher and higher till he was carried full thirty yards 
over the garden wall, when, falling at last at one Jordan's 
door, he was there found as if dead. Coming to 
himself, he declared that Jane Brooks had taken him 
by the arm, and carried him up, as Isles's wife had seen; 

2 B 



370 THE WITCHES OF ENGLAND. 

which fact was told and believed in as a fearful instance 
of her maKcious and wicked sorcery against the sprightly 
youth. At another time, as many as nine people at once 
saw him hanging from a beam, his hands placed flat 
against the wood, and his whole body raised two or 
three feet from the ground. He continued to play 
these extraordinary tricks from the 15th of Novem- 
ber to the 10th of March ; when, being much wasted and 
worn, it was deemed advisable to save his life if yet 
there might be time. Jane Brooks was sent to gaol, 
condemned, and hanged at Charde assizes, March 26th, 
1658 ; and Richard Jones, having no longer any in- 
ducement to act the possessed, consented to remain 
with his feet on the ground and his head in the air, 
according to the laws of nature and Newton, and took 
no more fits, real or simulated, to extort compassion or 
obtain revenge. 



THE WITCHES OF THE EESTOEATION. 

The poor witches were always seeing troublous times. 
At about the time of the Lord Protector's death one 
was hanged in Norwich and several in Cornwall. In 
1659 two suffered at Lancaster, for crimes which I 
cannot discover ; while in 1660, on the 14th of May, the 
Eestoration had its victims in the persons of a widow, 
her two daughters, and a man, who were carried to 
Worcester gaol on the double charge of witchcraft and 
high treason. For the eldest daughter had been heard 
to say that if they had not been taken the king would 
never have come to England : which was enough to 
frighten all the court into fits. And when they were 
taken, and tried, and condemned, she said further that 
" though he now doth come, yet he shall not live long 



THE WITCH-FINDEH FOUND. 371 

but shall die as ill a death as they," adding that had 
they not been taken " they would have made corn hke 
pepper:" that is, they would have blighted it. As 
there were many other charges against them, they 
were swum : when they floated like ducks — or witches ; 
and then they were searched: when the man was 
found to have five " bigges," two of the women three, 
but the eldest daughter only one. When first searched, 
none of these marks were visible on any of the women, 
whereat the inquisitors were advised to put them flat 
on their backs and keep their mouths open, until 
they should appear ; which advice was taken, with the 
happiest and most palpable results. 



THE WITCH-FINDER FOUND. 

Sometimes knavery defeated itself, though unhappily 
not often, as in the case of the famous witch-finder 
Mother Baker* and the young maid Stuppeny, of New 
Komsey in Kent. The young maid Stuppeny was sick, 
and as sickness in those days never meant the natural 
consequence of filthy habits, filthy food, and filthy habi- 
tations, but was by the supernatural devilry of witches 
and wizards, the parents concluded that their young 
maid must be bewitched, so set off to old Mother Baker 
to learn who was the guilty person. Old Mother Baker 
asked whom they suspected ? and they mentioned a near 
neighbour of theirs — particulars not given. " Yes," says 
the hag, " it is she, and she has made a heart of wax, 
which she daily pricks with pins and knitting-needles, 
and which is now concealed in the house, for the destruc- 
tion of the young maid your daughter." So the parents 

* Eeginald Scot. 



372 THE WITCHES OF ENGLAND. 

Stuppeny searched their house, but found no heart of 
wax ; whereupon old Mother Baker, with big pockets 
to her sides, said she herself must search. And slie did 
search, and turned out the charm from the very spot 
where she said it was. But certain prying neighbours, 
whose eyes were sharp and wits clear, had watched old 
Baker and her pockets ; and as she laid the image in 
a corner that had been most diligently searched and 
looked into, her cheat was discovered, and the anony- 
mous wretch living next door escaped, while Mother 
Baker suffered the penalties awarded in Scot's time to 
cozenage and deceit with intent to defraud or do ill. 



DOLL BILBY AND HER COMPEER.* 

Burton Agnes, in the county of York, was troubled : 
for Faith Corbet, the young daughter of Henry Corbet, 
was taken violently ill, and Alice Huson and Doll 
Bilby had bewitched her. Good Mrs. Corbet — beyond 
her age in generous unbelief — refused to entertain her 
daughter's suspicions ; indeed she had chidden her 
some years ago for calling old Alice a witch, for she 
had a liking to the poor widow, and kept her about the 
house, looking after her young turkeys, &c., and was 
kind and liberal to her, and sought to make her wasting 
life pass as easily as might be. But Miss Faith hated 
the old woman, and cried out against her as a witch ; 
and when she lost her gloves, swore that Alice had 
taken them to play cantrips with, and that she should 
never be well again. Then she began to fall into fits, 
when she would be so terriblv tormented that it took 
two or three to hold her ; and she would screech and 

* ' Collection of Modern Relations.' 



DOLL BILBY AND HER COMPEER. 373 

trj out vehemently, and bite and scratch anything she 
could lay hold of, all the while exclaiming, " Ah, Alice, 
old witch, have I gotten thee !" And sometimes she 
would lie down, all drawn together in a round, and be 
speechless and half swooning for days together; and 
then she would be wildly merry, and as full of antics 
as a monkey. Physicians were consulted, but none 
came near to her disorder; and though her father 
carried her about hither and thither, for change of air, 
nothing would cure her, she said^ so long as Alice Huson 
and Doll Bilby remained at liberty. Still the father 
and mother held out, until, one day, before a whole 
concourse of people come to look at her in her fits, she 
cried out, " Oh Faithless and incredulous People ! shall 
I never be believed till it be past Time ? For I am as 
near Death as possibly may be, and when they have 
got my Life you will repent when it is past Time." On 
hearing this the father went to the minister of Burton 
Agnes, Mr. Wellfet, and he, Sir Fr. Boynton — a justice 
of the peace — and Mr. Corbet himself at last dragged 
the old woman Huson into Faith's chamber. At which 
Miss Faith gave a great screech, but presently called for 
toast and beer ; then for cordials ; and having taken a 
somewhat large quantity of both, she got up, dressed 
herself, and came down stairs. This, too, after she had 
been so weak that she could not turn herself in bed : 
which proved that Mother Huson had some extra- 
ordinary influence over the girl — an influence more 
potent than holy said the bystanders. This happy state 
did not continue. Faith said she should never be well 
while the two women were at liberty ; and so it proved ; 
for when they were at last arrested, and held in strict 
security and durance, the young lady pronounced her- 
self healed, and gave no one any more trouble. Then 



374 THE WITCHES OF ENGLAND. 

Alice Huson was got to make confession to Mr. Wellfet, 
the minister, and thus sealed her own doom, and saved 
the prosecution the pain of conviction. 

She said that for three years she had had intercourse 
with the devil, who, one day as she was on the moor, 
appeared to her in the form of a black man riding on 
horseback. He told her she should never want if she 
would follow his ways and give herself up to him: 
which Alice promised to do. Then he sealed the bar- 
gain by giving her five shillings ; at another time he gave 
her seven ; and often — indeed six or seven times — re- 
peating his gifts to the like munificent extent. He was 
like a black man with cloven feet, riding on a black 
horse, and Alice feU down and worshipped him, as she 
had covenanted. And she had hurt Faith Corbet by her 
evil spirit, for she did, in her apprehension, ride her ; 
and when Mr. Wellfet examined her once before, the 
devil stood by, and gave her answers ; and she was 
under the Corbets' window as a cat when Mrs. Corbet 
said she was — for even her kindly faith was shaken at 
last ; and Doll Bilby had a hand in all this evil too ; for 
Doll wanted to kill Faith outright, but old Alice inter- 
posed, thinking they had done enough harm already. 
She confessed to killing Dick Warmers " by my wicked 
heart and wicked eyes ;" and to having lent Lancelot 
Harrison eight shillings of the ten which the devil had 
given her at Baxter's door, a fortnight ago, " about twi- 
light or day gate ;" and she had a bigge, or witch mark, 
where the devil sucked from supper-time till after cock- 
crowing, twitching at her heart as if it was drawn with 
pincers the while ; and she meant to practise witchcraft 
four years ago, when she begged old clothes of Mrs. 
Corbet, and the childi-en refused her ; and the devil told 
her not to tell of Doll Bilby. And to all this raving 



* THE ASTRAL SPIRIT'S ASSAULT. 375 

Timothy Wellfet, minister of Burton Agnes, set his 
name, and so hanged Alice Huson and Doll Bilby at 
the next York assizes : after which Miss Faith Corbet 
was for ever rid of her fits and fancies. 



THE ASTRAL SPIRIT'S ASSAULT. 

Can we wonder at anything which it might please 
those servants of the devil, the witches, to do, when even 
a spirit — a disembodied ghost— a mere appearance — 
a spectre: — an apparition — could audibly box a lad's ears 
before a whole room full of spectators, and at last box 
them so soundly as to break his neck, and kill him? 
Baxter's " World of Spirits " gives this story as 
happening to a barber's apprentice in Cambridge, in 
the year 1662. The spectre who killed the boy was 
in the garb and appearance of a gentlewoman; and 
at about the same hour, as near as they could guess, 
when it boxed the boy's ears and broke his neck at 
Cambridge, while the father was sitting at dinner with 
the boy's master at Ely, " the appearance of a Gentle- 
woman comes in, looking very angrily, taking a Turn 
or two, disappeared." It seems that the spectre had 
that night been endeavouring to persuade the boy to 
leave his apprenticeship and return home to Ely, where 
she and he were very free and had long been wont to 
disport together, even while company was in the room, 
and while the father, a minister named Franklin, 
was sitting there. After some treaty the boy reso- 
lutely said he would not go home, whereupon the 
spirit gave him a sounding box on the ear, which made 
him very ill ; but he rose as usual when the morning 
came, though unfit for work or even play. When the 
master heard the story, he rode over to Ely to see 



376 THE WITCHES OF ENGLAND. 

Mr. Franklin, and confer with him respecting the un- 
comfortable and inconvenient desires of the spirit ; and 
in the forenoon of the day, the boy sitting by the 
kitchen fire, his mistress being by, suddenly cried out, 
" 0, mistress, look : there's the gentlewoman !" The 
mistress looked, but saw nothing, yet soon after heard a 
noise as of a great box on the ears, and turning round 
saw the boy bending down his neck : and presently he 
died. This is the story gravely told by Baxter, in the 
fullest faith that all was as he narrated, and that there 
was no natural explanation possible to a circumstance 
which derived its only importance from its supernatu- 
ralism. 

Another spirit, a few years later — in 1667 — took to 
haunting a man's house at Kinton, six miles from 
Worcester ; and boxed his ears as he sat by the fire 
over against the maid. At which the man cried out, 
and went away to his son's in the town, not caring to 
continue where a ghost could make itself equal to a 
living body with bones and muscles, and give him 
undeniable proofs of the same. A minister of the place, 
Charles Hatt, went to the house to exorcise the ghost by 
prayer, and had not been there long before " there was 
a great noise in the said room, of groaning, or rather 
gruntling, like a Hog, and then a lowd Shriek." Mr. 
Charles Hatt prayed on; and after the spectre had 
done its best to frighten him with noises, but finding 
that the louder it gruntled the louder he prayed, it 
died away, and the man was troubled no more to the 
day of his death, which happened about two years 
after. 

If this was a book on spirits instead of on witchcraft 
many stories from Baxter could be given bearing on the 
question ; but, fascinating as they are, they are some- 



JULIAN'S TOADS. 377 

what foreign to my design ; so I must pass them by, 
and go on to the more material, and more gnilty, records 
of the witchcraft superstition. All the mere spectre 
or ghost stories are both tame and innocent compared 
to the witch delusions. At least they caused no blood- 
shed ; and if they broke hearts it was not through shame 
and despair and ruin. 

JULIAN'S TOADS.* 

At the Taunton assizes, in 1663, Julian Cox, about 
seventy years old, was indicted before Judge Archer for 
practising her arts of witchcraft upon a " young Maid, 
whereby her Body languished, and was impaired of 
Health." And first jvere taken proofs of her witchcraft. 
One witness, a huntsman, swore that one day, as he 
was hunting not far from Julian's house, he started a 
hare, which the dogs ran very close till it came to a 
bush ; when, going round to the other side to keep it 
from the dogs, he perceived Julian Cox grovelhng on 
the ground, panting and out of breath. She was the 
hare, and had had just time enough to say the magic 
stave which changed her back to woman's form again, ere 
the dogs had caught her. Another man swore that one 
day, passing her house as " she was taking a Pipe of 
Tobacco upon the Threshold of the Door," she invited 
him to come in and join her ; which he did ; when 
presently she cried out, ^' Neighbour, look what a pretty 
thing there is !" and there was "a monstrous great Toad 
betwixt his Legs, staring him in the Face." He tried 
to hit it, but could not, whereupon JuKan told him to 
desist striking it and it would do him no hurt ; but he 
was frightened, and went off to his family, telling them 

* Glanvil. 



378 THE WITCHES OF ENGLAND. 

that he had seen one of Julian Cox her devils. Yet 
even when he was at home this same toad appeared 
again betwixt his legs, and though he took it out, and 
cut it in several pieces, still, when he returned to his 
pipe, there was the toad. He tried to burn it, but 
could not ; then to beat it with a switch, but the toad 
ran about the room to escape him ; presently it gave a 
cry and vanished, and he was never after troubled with 
it. A third witness swore that one day, when milking, 
Julian Cox passed by the yard where he was, and 
" stooping down scored upon the ground for some small 
time, during which time his Cattle ran Mad, and some 
of them ran their Heads against the Trees, and most of 
them died speedily." Concluding by which signs that 
they were bewitched, he cut off thejr ears to burn them, 
and, while they were on the fire, Julian Cox came in 
a great heat and rage, crying out that they abused her 
without cause ; but, going slily up to the fire, she took 
off the ears, and then was quiet. By the laws of witch- 
craft it was she who was burning, not the beasts' ears. 
A fourth, as veracious as the former, swore to having 
seen her " fly into her own Chamber-window in her full 
proportion ;" all of which testimony gave weight and 
substance to the maid's charge. 

The maid was servant at a certain house, where 
Julian came one day to ask for alms ; but the maid gave 
her a cross answer, and said she should have none ; so 
Julian told the maid she should repent her incivility 
before night. And she did; for she was taken with 
convulsions, and cried out to the people of the house 
to save her from Julian, for she saw her following her. 
In the night she became worse, saying that she saw 
Julian Cox and the black man by her bedside, and that 
they tempted her to drink, but " she defy'd the Devil's 



JULIAN'S TOADS. 379 

Drenches." The next night, expecting the same kind 

of conflict, she took up a knife and laid it at the head 

of her bed. In the middle of the night came the 

spiritual Julian and the black man, as before, so the 

maid took the knife, and stabbed at Julian, whom she 

said she had wounded in the leg. The people, riding 

out to see, found Julian in her own house with a fresh 

wound on her leg, and blood was also on the maid's 

bed. The next day Julian appeared to the maid and 

forced her to eat pins. Her apparition was on the 

house wall ; and " all the Day the Maid was observ'd 

to convey her Hand to the House wall, and from the 

Wall to her Mouth, and she seem'd by the motion of 

her Mouth as if she did eat something." So towards 

night, still crying out on Julian, she was undressed, 

and all over her body were seen great swellings and 

bunches in which were huge pins — as many as thirty or 

more — which she said Julian Cox, when in the house 

wall, had forced her to eat. Was not allthis enough to 

hang a dozen Julian Coxes ? Judge Archer thought so ; 

especially when was added to this testimony Julian's iiS 

own enforced confession, of how she had been often jV 

tempted by the devil to become a witch, but would :|, 

never consent ; yet how one evening, walking about a 

mile from her house, she met three persons riding on i' j 

broom-staves, borne up about a yard and a half from j^*f 

the ground, two of whom she knew — a witch and a ■ 

wizard, hanged for witchcraft several years ago — but ^[ 

the third, a black man, she did not then know. He 

however tempted her to give up her soul, which she did -v 

by pricking her finger and signing her name with her & 

blood. So that, by her own showing, as well as by the ^i 

unimpeachable testimony of reputable witnesses, she ll^ 

was a witch and one coming under the provisions of the .| 



380 THE WITCHES OF ENGLAND. 

Awful Verse. And further, as she could not repeat the 
Lord's Prayer, but stumbled over the clause " And lead 
us not into Temptation," which she made into '^And 
lead us into temptation," or " And lead us not into no 
temptation," but could in no manner repeat correctly, 
the judge and jury had but one conclusion to come to, 
which was that she be hanged four days after her trial. 
But some of the less blind and besotted spoke harsh 
words of Judge Archer for his zeal and precipitancy, 
and openly declared poor JuHan's innocence when ad- 
vocacy could do her strangled corpse no good. 



THE YOUGHAL WITCH. 

About this time, too, or rather two years before old 
Julian Cox had been seen flying in at her window in 
full proportion, one Florence Newton, of Youghal, was 
overhauled for her misdeeds towards Mary Longdon. 
Mary was John Pyne's servant, and deposed that one 
day Florence came to where she lived and asked her 
for a bit of beef out of the powdering tub, to which 
Mary would not consent (these witnessing servants 
were always so moral and honest I), saying she had no 
right to give away her master's beef. The witch, being 
angry, muttered, " Thou had'st as good have given it 
me," and went away grumbling. A few days after, 
meeting with Mary going to the water with a pail of 
cloth on her head, she came full against her, and 
violently kissed her, and said, " Mary, I pray thee let 
thee and I be friends, for I bear thee no ill will, and I 
pray thee do thou bear me none." Mary does not give 
her reply, but says that she went home, and in a few 
days after " saw a Woman with a Vail over her Face 
stand by her bedside, and one standing by her like a 






THE YOUGHAL WITCH. 381 

little old Man in silk Cloaths, and tliat this Man, whom 
she took to be a Spirit, drew the Vail from off the 
Woman's Face, and then she knew it to be Goody 
Ne^vton ; and that the Spirit spake to the Deponent, 
and would have had her promise him to follow his 
Advice, and she should have all things after her own 
Heart ; to which she says she answered ' That she would 
have nothinir to say to him, for her Trust was in the 
Lord.' " After this Mary Longdon was taken very ill, 
vomiting pins and needles and horse-nails and stubbs 
and wool and straw, while small stones followed her 
about the room, and from place to place, striking her 
sharply on her head and shoulders and arms, then 
vanishing away. She was also strangely put upon by 
beds, and other such assailants. Sometimes she was 
forcibly carried from one bed to another; sometimes 
ken to the top of the house, or laid on a board betwixt 
two sollar beams, or put into a chest, or laid under a 
parcel of wool, or betwixt two feather beds, or (in the 
day time) between the bed and the mat in her master's 
room. All of these pranks done by Florence Newton's 
Astral Spirit, by which Mary maid was bewitched. 
Florence Newton also bewitched to his death David 
Jones, who had constituted himself one of her watchers 
while she was in ^'bolts'' in prison. David took great 
pains to teach her the Lord's Prayer, but Florence, 
being a witch, could not repeat it correctly ; at last 
she called out to him, " David ! David ! come hither ; 
I can say the Lord's Prayer now." Not that she could, 
for when she came to the clause " Forgive us our 
Trespasses," she skipped over it, or boggled at it, or got 
round it in some way or other that was not holy ; then 
seizing David's hand between the bars of the grate she 
kissed it thankfully ; and thus and there possessed him, 



■I 



382 THE WITCHES OF ENGLAND. 

so that he died fourteen days after of that strange lan- 
guishing disease known to all the world as a bewitch- 
ment. 

THE WITCHES OF STYLES'S KNOT.* 

Elizabeth Hill, aged thirteen, had strange fits. She 
was much convulsed and contorted ; she writhed, foamed, 
and could with difficulty be held or mastered ; she had 
moreover swellings and holes in her flesh, which were 
made she said by thorns, and whence the bystanders 
averred they saw the child hook out thorns. Even the 
clergyman of the parish, William Parsons rector of 
Stoke Trister, added his testimony to the rest : and on 
the 26th of January, 1664, in an examination taken 
before Eobert Hunt, vouched for the truth of the fits, 
and the swellings, and the black thorns in the midst of 
the swellings ; but he did not add to this testimony the 
further assertion that it was Elizabeth Styles who had 
bewitched the child, though she herseK " cried out" on 
her, and said that she tormented her in her fits. 
Elizabeth Styles was further accused of causing Kichard 
Hill's horse to sit down and paw with his fore feet 
when attempted to be crossed, and of having bewitched 
Agnes Yining by means of a rosy-cheeked apple, which 
was no sooner eaten than it caused a grievous pricking 
in Agnes' thigh, who forthwith languished and died, 
" her hip rotted, and one of her eyes swelled out." 
These are signs of a worse bewitchment than poor 
old Mother Styles's rosy-cheeked apple — signs of the 
deadly sorcery of scrofula induced by the poverty, dirt, 
bad food and worse lodging of the times; for the 
effects of which many a poor wretch lost her life who 
* Glanvil. 



THE WITCHES OF STYLES'S KNOT. 383 

yet had done no more harm than the nursling at the 
breast. Robert Hunt the Justice, and one of our fine 'i 

old English gentlemen, did not take this materialistic v 

view of the matter. WTien told of Agnes Vining's ill- 
ness and manner of disease, and seeing Elizabeth Styles 
looking appalled and concerned, he said to her : " You 
have been an old sinner, you deserve little mercy." 
To which the poor soul answered, humbly, " I have 
asked God for it." She then said that the devil had •! 

seduced her, and so began her confession on the 26th 
of January — three days after the first accusation by the 
Hills. She said that about ten years ago the devil 
appeared to her as a handsome man changing after- 
wards to the shape of a black dog ; " that he pro- 
mised her money, and that she should live gallantly,' 
and have the Pleasures of the World for twelve years," 
if only she would sign a certain bond with her blood, '^* 

give him her soul, obey his laws, and let him suck her | 

blood. To all of which she consented after four soli- ||, 

citations, whereupon he pricked her finger — the mark If 

thereof to be seen at this time — and she, with her own '\ 

blood signed the paper with an 0, when the devil gave ,y 

her sixpence and vanished with the bond. Since then * ' 

he appeared to her constantly, under the forms of a 
man, a cat, a dog, or a " fly like a miliar " (a large white . > 

moth), as which last he usually sucked her poll about J|1 

four in the morning ; and hurt her terribly in doing so. !|* 

She also said that when she wanted him to do anything '^f 

for her, she called him by the name of " Robin," 
adding, " Satan give me my purpose !" which he 'i! 

never failed to do. It was he who stuck the thorns p-; 

into Elizabeth Hill; but then she impHcated three ts 

other women, Alice Duke, Ann Bishop, and Mary 'k 

Penny, saying that they too had stuck thorns into an |j 



384 THE WITCHES OF ENGLAND. 

enchanted picture meant for Elizabeth Hill, one night 
when they had all met the devil on the common, 
he, as a man in black clothes with a little band, first 
anointing its forehead with oil, saying, '* I baptize thee 
with this oyl." After Avhich they had a supper of 
wine, cakes, and roast meat, all brought by the man in 
black, and they ate and drank and danced and were 
merry. This they did always, whenever they would 
destroy any one obnoxious ; and so had a merry time of 
it upon the whole. When they wanted to go to their 
meetings " they would anoint their wrists and foreheads 
with an oyl the spirit brings them, which smells raw," 
after which they were carried off, saying : " Thout, tout, 
a tout, tout, throughout and about:" on their return 
changing the stave to " Eentum Tormentum," wliich 
was the shibboleth to bring them back. But before they 
left they used to make obeisance to the man in black, 
who usually played to their dancing, saying, " A Boy ! 
merry meet, merry part ;" on which he vanished, and the 
conclave was broken up. She then told the "several 
grave and orthodox divines " who assisted Eobert Hunt 
to take her examination, that Alice Duke's familiar was 
a cat, and Ann Bishop's a rat. Her own was a miliar ; 
concerning which Nicholas Lambert made some strange 
revelations. He said that as he and two others, hired 
to watch EKzabeth Styles in prison, were sitting near 
her as she crouched by the fire — he, Nicholas Lambert, 
reading in " The Practise of Piety " — about three in the 
morniDg they saw a " glistering bright fly," about an 
inch in length, come from her head and pitch on the 
chimney : then instantly vanish. In less than a quarter 
of an hour after, in came two other flies and seemed to 
strike at his hand, but which dodged him cleverly 
when he struck at them with his book. At this, Styles's 



THE WITCHES OF STYLES'S KNOT. 385 

countenance became very black and ghastly, and the i, 

fire also changed its colour ; so the watchers, conceiving f 

that lier familiar was about her, and seeing also her 'f-* 
hair shake very strangely, went to examine her poll, 
when out flew a gTeat miliar, which pitched on a table 
board and then vanished away. Her poll was red like 

raw beef, but presently regained its natural colour. :'! 

Upon which EKzabeth confessed that it was her familiar, |. 

and that she had felt it tickle her poll. She was if 

condemned, after having inculpated thu'teen other |1 

persons, but " prevented execution by dying in gaol, a if 

little before the expiring of the term her confederate | 
daemon had set for her enjoyment of Diabolical Plea- 
sures." 

AHce Duke, " another witch of Styles's Knot," a widow 
living in Wincaunton, county of Somerset, was then 
apprehended and examined. She seems to have given 
no trouble, but to have come frankly to the point, and 
to have admitted whatever they liked to demand. She 

said that, eleven or twelve years ago, Ann Bishop per- ' •■ 

suaded her to go one night to the churchyard, and $ 

" being come thither to go backward round the church, i|' 

which they did three times." In then- first round they ' j. 

met a man in black clothes who accompanied them : "^ 

in their second a thing like a great black toad, which ]^ 

leaped up against Duke's apron : in the third, " some- If 

what in the shape of a rat " which vanished away. After ;: 

which they both w^ent home, but before they went the |; 
man in black said something softly to Ann Bishop, 

yet what it was Alice did not hear. Soon after this |: 

she signed herself away in the same manner and for the |:| 

same purposes as EKzabeth Styles had done ; and the |i 

devil gave her sixpence as he had given Styles, and m 

vanished away wdth the fatal paper. She confirmed || 

2 G ■ f 



386 THE WITCHES OF ENGLAND. 

all that Styles had said concerning the meetings on the 
common, the enchanted pictures and the greenish oil, 
the devil, the wine, and cakes, and music ; she gave infor- 
mation, though, of many more such pictures which were to 
doom the unfortunate likenesses to death ; and she said 
farther that Ann Bishop was the devil's favourite, and 
that she sat next him, and wore " a green Apron, a 
French Waistcoat, and a red Petticoat." 8he gave the 
same phrase that Elizabeth Styles had given, as the 
magic password which took them to and from the 
devil's meetings ; and she confessed that her familiar 
came to her each night, about seven o'clock, " in the 
shape of a little Cat of a dunnish colour, which is as 
smooth as a Want, and when she is suck'd she is in a 
kind of Trance." She had hurt several people ; specially 
Thomas Hanway's daughter by giving her a pewter 
dish for a " good handsel " in the time of her lying in. 
This pewter dish was of such a malicious and venefical 
nature that when Thomas Hanway's daughter used it to 
heat some deer suet and rose water for her breasts, she 
was put to extreme pain ; which pain she had not when 
she heated the same deer suet and the same rose 
water in a common spoon. So, suspecting harm in the 
dish, she put it into the fire, " which then presently 
vanished, and nothing of it was afterwards to be found." 
Alice Duke also said that she called the devil " Kobin," 
and demanded of him aid and help in her undertakings. 
Like Styles and many others, she said that when the 
devil vanished he left an ill smell behind him ; which 
is explained as, " Those ascititious Particles he held 
together in his visible vehicle, being loosened at his 
vanishing, and so offending the Nostrils by their floatiug 
and diffusing themselves in the open air." 



387 



ROBIN AND HIS SERVANTS.* 



Somersetshire was sorely afflicted at this time. On the 
2nd of March still in the year of grace, 1664, Christian 
Green, aged about thirty-three, and wife of Eobert 
Green of Brewham, was taken before Eobert Hunt, Esq., 
to be examined and induced to confess. She did confess, 
without torture as it would appear ; at all events without 
more than the ordinary torture of " pricking " and 
sleeplessness always applied to witches. She said that 
about a year and a haK ago, she being in gi-eat poverty, 
was induced by one Catherine Green (her husband's 
sister?) to give her body and soul to the devil on 
condition that he would give her clothes, victuals, and 
money, as she might desire. She was to keep his 
secrets, and suffer him to suck her once in the twenty- 
four hours; to which at last she consented, the devil 
giving her foiu:pence-halfpenny as earnest money where- 
with to buy bread in Brewham. Since this time he 
came to her ever at five o'clock in the morning, much 
in the likeness of a hedgehog bending, and sucked her 
left breast : a painful process, though she was generally 
in a kind of trance at the time. Christian Green gave 
no new particulars relative to the devil and his works. 
He was always as a man in black clothes; and he 
charmed pictures to the undoing of those for whom they 
were designed; and when he vanished he left an ill 
smell behind him ; and he spake them very low when 
they arrived; and they did three horses to death by 
saying simply, " A Murrain on them Horses to death ;" 
and they bewitched unlikely sinners by mere word or 
look: all of which processes we have read of twenty 
* Glanvil. 



888 THE WITCHES OF ENGLAND. 

times before. Nor was there mucli more to be got out 
of " the villainous Feats of that i-ampant hag Margaret 
Agar," of Brewham, tried also in 1664, whom poor hys- 
terical Christian Green had delated, for she did nothing 
beyond curse her enemies and those who offended her, 
whereupon they died " as if stabbed with daggers," or 
were " consumed and pined away ;" some with one dis- 
ease, some with another ; but all dying without reprieve 
because of her curse. She also, in company with many 
others, was proved to have met " a little man in black 
clothes," whom they called " Eobin," and to whom 
they all made obeisance, the little man putting his 
hand to his head, saying, " How do ye ?" speaking low, 
but big. And they made " pictures " of wax into 
which the little black man stuck thorns, one in the 
crown, another in the breast, and a third in the side, 
which then Margaret would fling down saying, " This is 
Cornish's figure with a murrain to it," and Elizabeth 
Cornish would languish and die ; or " This is Bess 
Hill's ;" or any other person's whom it was desired 
to " forespeak " and destroy ; who of course were fore- 
spoken and destroyed from that hour. Margaret Agar 
was a " rampant hag " indeed in one sense, being evi- 
dently an ill-conditioned old woman, quick at a curse, 
and passionately eager to avenge herself, but her ma- 
gical arts appear to have been of the lowest possible 
order, and pale and lifeless compared with the more 
highly-coloured doings of others. Anything, however, 
was sufficient for the worshipful Master Kobert Hunt 
and his fellow justices, and curses did as well as the 
rest ; so poor old Margaret Agar was taken to the tree 
whereon grew the fatal fruit of death, to meditate there 
on Christian charity and the wise compassionateness of 
men, before learning by what steps the weary soul 



SIE MATTHEW HALE'S JUDGMENT. 389 

passes from earth to immortality. She was probably 
no great loss to the community, but her death placed 
her among the martyrs to superstition, and left her for 
ever as an object of historic pity. 



SIR MATTHEW HALE'S JUDGMENT.* 

At Bury St. Edmonds, in the county of Suffolk, a 
remarkable " Tryal of witches " was held on the tenth 
day of March, 1664, before Sir Matthew Hale, Lord 
Chief Baron of the Court of Exchequer. Kose Cul- 
lender and Amy Duny, both widows and both of 
Leystoff, were indicted for bewitching Elizabeth and 
Ann Durent, Jane Becking, Susan Chandler, William 
Durent, and EKzabeth and Deborah Pacy. WilKam 
Durent, being an infant, was sworn by grace of his 
mother Dorothy, and she deposed that some little time 
ago, having occasion to go from home, she desired Amy, 
who was her neighbour, to look after her child, but ex- 
pressly forbade her to suckle it in her absence. When 
asked by the court why she gave this caution to an old 
woman far past the age of performing such an office, 
Dorothy answered that Amy had long had the character of 
a witch who might suckle the devil himself or any of his 
imps ; and that moreover old women were apt to give the 
breast to a crying child, to please it during its mother's 
absence ; a habit that made the children ill. But it 
seems that Amy disobeyed her, for when she came 
home the old woman told her that she had given the 
breast to her infant, which made Dorothy very cross, 
and a high quarrel ensued. And that very night her 
child was taken with " strange fits of swounding," and 

* Tract ; PubUslied 1682. 



390 THE WITCHES OF ENGLAND. 

was held in such a terrible manner that she expected to 
lose it every moment. Not knowing what to do or 
where to get it relief, she went to a certain Doctor 
Jacob, well known tlnrough the country for skill in 
helping children that were bewitched, and this Dr. 
Jacob advised her to hang up the child's blanket in the 
cliimney corner all the day, and to put the child into it at 
night, and not be afraid at anything she might see, but 
to throw it at once into the iire. Dorothy did as she 
was bid, and when she took the blanket from the 
chimney-corner, down fell a great toad, " which ran up 
and down the hearth, and she having a young youth 
only with her in the House, desired him to catch the 
Toad and throw it into the Fire ; which the youth did 
accordingly, and held it there with the Tongs ; and as 
soon as it was in the Fire it made a great and horrible 
noise, and after a space there was a flashing in the Fire 
like Gunpowder, making a noise like the discharge of a 
Pistol, and thereupon the Toad was no more seen nor 
heard." But Amy Duny sat by her fireside all smhched 
and scorched, and in revenge bewitched the little 
daughter Elizabeth to death, and further afflicted 
Dorothy herself with a lameness in both her legs, so 
that she was forced to go upon crutches. About which 
the strangest thing was, that though she had gone on 
them for three years now, no sooner was Amy Duny 
condemned than she cast them away and went home 
without them, " to the gTcat admiration of all persons." 
This was the first count completed. 

The second was made by Samuel Pacy, " a Merchant 
of Leystoff aforesaid (a Man who carried himself with 
so much soberness during the Tryal, from whom pro- 
ceeded no words either of Passion or Malice, though liis 
Children were so greatly Afflicted)/' on behalf of his 



SIR MATTHEW HALE'S JUDGMENT. 391 

daughters, Elizabeth and Deborah ; the one aged about 
eleven, the other nine. Elizabeth had fits. She re- 
mained as one wholly senseless or in a deep sleep, the 
only sign of life being that, as she lay on cushions in 
the court, her stomach was raised to a great height on 
the drawing of her breath. After she had remained 
there for some time she came somewhat to herself, and 
then " laid her Head on the Bar of the Court with a 
Cushion imder it, and her hand and her Apron upon 
that;" when Amy Duny was brought privately to 
touch her. She had no sooner done so than the child, 
although not seeing her, suddenly leaped up and caught 
her by the hand and face, and scratched her till the 
blood came : after which she was easier. Samuel 
deposed that his younger daughter, Deborah, was sud- 
denly taken with a lameness in her legs, which con- 
tinued from the 10th to the 17th of October ; when 
the day, being fair and sunshiny, she desired to be 
carried to the east part of the house, and then set upon 
a bank which looks towards the sea. While sitting- 
there, came Amy Duny to buy some herrings; but 
being denied she went away grumbling, and on the 
instant " the Child was taken with the most violent 
Fits, feeling most extream Pain in her Stomach, like 
the pricking of Pins, and shreeking out in a most 
dreadful manner, like unto a Whelp, and not like unto 
a sensible Creature." The doctor, not understanding 
this disorder, and Amy Duny being under ill fame for 
a witch, Samuel Pacy caused her to be set in the stocks, 
as the most powerful remedy he knew of for his child's 
disorder. Being in the stocks, a neighbom- told her 
that she was suspected of being the cause of Mr. Pacy's 
trouble : whereupon Amy answered, " Mr. Pacy keeps 
a great stir about his Child ; let him stay until he has 



392 THE WITCHES OF ENGLAND. 

done as much by his Children as I have by mine." 
And being further examined what she had done to her 
children, she answered, " That she had been fain to 
open her Child's Mouth with a Tap to give it victuals." 
When, therefore, Elizabeth, the elder girl, fell ill within 
two days after this, and could by no means be made to 
oj)en her mouth without a good-sized tap being put into 
it, the thing was certain, and might no longer be gain- 
sayed. And when they both vomited crooked pins, and 
as many as forty broad-headed nails, and were deprived 
of sight and hearing, and cried out perpetually against 
Amy Duny and Kose Cullender, and could not be got 
to say the names " Jesus," " Lord," or ^' Christ," but 
w^hen they came to " Satan " or " Devil," would clap 
their fingers on the book (the New Testament), crying 
out, " This bites, but makes me speak right well," what 
sane person could doubt the truth? Other strange 
things beside happened to them. They used to see 
creatures of the appearance of mice run up and down 
the house, and one of them " suddainly snapt one with 
the Tongs, and threw it into the Fixe, and it screeched 
out like a Eat." At another time a thing like a bee 
flew into Deborah's face, and would have got into her 
mouth, had she not gone shrieking into the house ; 
when, with much apparent pain and effort, she brought 
up a twopenny nail with a broad head, which she said 
the bee had forced into her mouth. Again, another 
time, Elizabeth cried out that she saw a mouse under 
the table, which she caught up in her apron and flung 
into the fire. Deponent, her aunt, confessed that she 
saw nothing in the child's hand, nevertheless the fire 
flashed as if gunpowder had been flung in; also "at 
another time, the said Child being speechless, but 
otherwise of perfect understanding, ran round about the 



SIR MATTHEW HALE'S JUDGMENT. 393 

House, holding lier Apron, crying * Hush, hush,' as if 
there had been Poultry in the House ; but this Depo- 
nent could perceive nothing; but at last she saw the 
Cliild stoop as if she had catch't at something, and put 
it into her Apron, and afterwards made as if she had 
thrown it into the Fire ; but tliis Deponent could not 
discover any thing ; but the Child afterwards being re- 
stored to her speech, she, this Deponent, demanded of 
her what she saw at the time she used such a posture ? 
who answered. That she saw a Duck." 

Others deposed to the same kind of things : as 
Edmund Durent, father to the girl Ann, whom Eose 
Cullender had bewitched — also because denied the right 
of buying herrings; and Diana Becking, mother to 
Jane likemse afflicted with crooked pins and tenpenny 
nails; and Mary Chandler, mother of Susan, who was 
stricken blind and dumb, and had the plague of pins 
upon her too, and who cried out " in a miserable 
manner, * Burn her, burn her,' " which were all the 
words she could speak, and which meant that poor old 
Eose was to be burnt that Susan Chandler might be 
dispossessed. And there was Dr. Brown, of Norwich, 
a person of great knowledge, who gave it as his de- 
liberate opinion that the girls were bemtched, every 
one of them, and that '' the Devil in such cases did 
work upon the Bodies of Men and Women upon a 
Katural Foundation, (that is) to stir up and excite such 
Humoui's superabounding in their Bodies to a great 
Excess, whereby he did in an Extraordinary Manner 
Afflict them with such Distempers as their Bodies were 
most subject to, as particularly appeared in these Chil- 
dren ; for he considered that these swooning Fits were 
Natui'al, and nothing else but that they call the Mother, 
but only heightened to a great excess by the subtilty of 



394 THE WITCHES OF ENGLAND. 

the Devil co-operating with the Malice of these which we 
term Witches, at whose instance he doth these Yil- 
lanies." Such an argument as this was then held quite 
as pertinent and irresistible as would noAv be the evi- 
dence of the microscope and the test of chemical expe- 
riment. It is refreshing, in the midst of all this wild 
nonsense, to find that some gentlemen — Lord Corn- 
wallis, Sir Edmund Bacon, and Mr. Serjeant Keeling, 
who had been directed by the Lord Chief Justice to 
make an experiment with these girls — openly protested 
against the whole thing, affirming it to be an imposture 
from first to last ; and that when the childi'en covered 
up their heads in their aprons, and shrieked and ^Tithed 
when Kose Cullender or Amy Duny touched them, 
they did it in full possession of their senses, and per- 
fectly understanding what they were about. For when 
they tried them ^ith other women whom they made 
believe were the two cried out on, and took care that 
their eyes were held, so that they should not see, the 
children shrieked and howled, and went off into then- 
fits all the same ; which double experiment satisfied the 
gentlemen of the fraudulent character of it all. But 
this little nucleus of rationality was not strong enough 
to disperse the thick darkness gathered round the 
minds of aU present — gathered round the mind of even 
Sir Thomas Brown and the " good " Sir Matthew Hale ; 
and when one witness had deposed that his cart had stuck 
fast between some posts, and that the haymakers could 
not unload the hay until the next morning, because 
Kose Cullender had threatened him; and another that 
his pigs and cattle died in a most extraordinary manner, 
and he himself swarmed with vermin which he could 
not get rid of, because he also had been thi-eatened by 
her ; and a third that she had lost her geese because 



THE WAITINa-MAID AND T^E PIN. 395 

Amy Duny had said she should ; and that a chimney 
had fallen down because Amy Duny had said it would — 
when all these tilings had been sworn to and proved, 
then the minds of the judge and jury admitted of no 
further doubt. Amy Duny and Eose Cullender were 
brought in guilty, and hanged at Cambridge on 
Monday, March 17, confessing nothing. 

"The next morning the children came with their 
Parents to the Lodgings of the Lord Chief Justice, and 
were in as good Health as ever they were in their lives, 
being restored within half an hour after the witches 
were convicted." A fact then sufficiently conclusive, 
but which now is the strongest proof that could be 
offered of the wicked deception of the whole matter. 



THE WAITINa-MAID AND THE PIN.* 

Li 1665 Elizabeth Brooker, servant to Mrs. Hieron, 
of Honiton, in Devonshire, waiting at table one Lord's 
day, suddenly felt a pricking as of a pin in her thigh, 
and, on looking, found indeed a pin there, but inside 
her skin, drawing no blood nor breaking the skin, and 
thrust in so far that she could scarce feel the head of it 
with her finger. By Tuesday it had worked so far 
inwards that she could no longer feel it at aU ; and the 
day after she went to Mr. Anthony Smith, a surgeon of 
great repute, who was obliged to have recom-se to inci- 
sions and cataplasms, and all the appliances of the 
surgery, in order to extract this obstinate and male- 
volent pin. For it was a bewitched pin; and either 
Agnes Kichardson, who had been angry with Elizabeth 
" about miscarriage in an errand that she sent her on," 
* Baxter's ' World of Spirits.' 



396 THE* WITCHES OF ENGLAND. 

or an unknown woman who had lately been near her, 
was suspected of the crime of sticking it into her. Mrs. 
Hieron was a widow, and kept a draper's shop in Honi- 
ton, and Elizabeth Brooker, her servant, sold small 
wares in a stall before her mistress's door. On market 
day, which was Saturday, came a certain woman and 
asked Elizabeth for a pin. She took one from her 
sleeve readily enough ; but the woman was dissatisfied, 
and demanded one of a bigger sort hung up in a paper 
to sell. The maid said they were not hers to give; 
they were her mistress's : if she would ask her mistress 
for one, and get her leave to have it, she, Elizabeth, 
would then give her one willingly. This woman went 
away in a great fume, saying " she should hear farther 
from her, and that she would wish e'er long she had 
given the pin as desired." The next day a pin was 
thrust into her thigh as she was waiting at table, and 
no Christian person could doubt whence it came or why 
it was sent. Mr. Anthony Smith, the " Chirurgeon of 
great Keputation," who could not extract a pin without 
a fortnight's illness supervening, wrote a detailed ac- 
count of the whole matter ; but whether the unknown 
woman was traced and found, or whether Agnes Kichard- 
son got any mishandling for the suspicion cast on her, 
or whether, again, the trick passed off without result, 
and no one was the worse because a maid-servant chose 
to run a pin into her thigh, I can find no record to 
inform me. As not much harm was done, perhaps the 
devil was let off easy this time, and the hags, his 
mistresses, suffered to extend their trade a little longer. 



397 



JANE STRETTON AND THE CUNNING WOMAN.* 

Jane Stretton and her parents lived at Ware in the 
year 1669, Jane being then a young maid of about 
twenty, generally out at service. It chanced that 
Thomas, her father, lost a Bible, and must needs go to 
a cunning man to ask where it was, and who had it — a 
thing which, as a good Christian, he should have been 
ashamed of: to which the cunning man replied darkly, 
" he could tell him if he would." Whereupon Stretton, 
not in the least grateful for such a doubtful reply, broke 
out with, " Then thou must be either a witch or a devil, 
seeing thou canst neither read nor write." This was 
all that passed, and it seems but scant substance for a 
deadly quarrel; but a few days afterwards this cunning 
man's wife went slily to Stretton's, and asked daughter 
Jane for a pot of drink. This was to establish direct 
communication. " Innocency dreads no danger : the 
child will play with the Bee for his gaudy Coat, and 
mistrusts not his sting," says this flowery tract ; but soon 
after Jane had thus committed herself to transfers and 
communication with the witch, the " devil, who is a sly 
thief, and though he keeps his servants poor, yet in- 
dues them, with a plentifuU stock of malice, revenge, 
and dissimulation," suffered this bad woman, or this 
cunning man, to afflict Jane, but not so grievously as 
they were suffered to do hereafter. In about a week's 
time the cunning man's wife went and desired a pin of 
her, which Jane, granting, became suddenly beset with 
fits, most terrible to behold. " But her misery ends not 

* ' Hartfordshire "Wonder ; or, Strange News from Ware/ London. 
Printed for John Clark, at the Bible and Harp, in West-Smith-Field, 
near the Hospital Gate. 1669. 



398 THE WITCHES OF ENGLAND. 

here : the squib is not run out to the end of the rope. 
When the Devil has an inch given to him he will take 
an ell ;" so poor Jane was not only troubled with fits, 
but must needs have her mouth stopped so that she ate 
nothing for weeks and months, and was forced to live 
like a chameleon, on air. Besides this, she was made to 
perpetually vomit flax and hair and thread-ends and 
crooked pins ; while blue, white, and red flames came 
in the intervals out of her mouth, and her body 
was continually slashed and cut with a knife, and imps 
in the shape of frogs, and toads, and mice, and the like, 
for ever haunted her ; and the wise man's wife was the 
cause of all. Then the neighbours took some of the foam 
which Jane had always hanging round her mouth, and 
burnt it for a counter charm, and to hurt the besetting 
witch ; and chancing to light on the woman, they told 
her they would take her to the maid to be scratched. 
To which she made answer, " That if they had not come 
she could not have stayed any longer from her:" so 
gTcat was the potency of the burnt foam. For nine 
months did this girl befool her world, and then — the 
cunning man and his wife being probably put to death — 
she managed to get well of all her ailments, and to find 
meat and milk more sustaining diet than crooked pins, 
hair, or wool ; though, indeed, the meat and milk had 
never been wanting in the dark hours undiscovered, 
for Jane had taken care to live as usual when the night 
had blinded prying eyes, and there was no one to count 
off the tale of slices cut and devoured. 

Fortunately for the sanity of society, every one did 
not believe these monstrous stories. Webster's book, 
published about this time, was one of those brave few 
which openly discredited the truth of the witch stories 
afloat in the world, and made as great a sensation, or 



JANE STRETTON AND THE CUNNING WOMAN. 399 

even greater, tlian the grand old work of Eeginald Scot. 
Like him, Webster doubted the truth of the witch of 
Endor's enchantments, which the upholders of the faith 
rested on as the very keystone of their position. The 
witch herself he calls " a cozening quean," " a crafty 
subtile quean," "an idolatrous, wicked, and couzening 
witch:" for they understood the value of forcible lan- 
guage in those days : Saul is " a drowned puppet " — to 
Glanvil's intense Avrath at this rude mishandling of a 
"noble prince;" Samuel but "a confederate knave," or 
" but a Ipng phantasie ;" in the conjurations the witch,. 
" casting herself into a feigned Trance, lay grovelling 
upon the Earth with her face downwards, and so changing 
her voice did mutter, and murmur, and peep, and chirp, 
like a bird coming forth of the shell ;" with other knock- 
down assertions of common sense not afraid, by which 
the curate of Kildwick demolished the whole argument of 
supernaturalism, and left the poor witch of Endor and 
Saul himseK not an inch of ground to stand on. So with 
all the other stories that came into his hands ; so with 
the special points of faith, peculiar to the creed of witch- 
craft, such as communion and covenant with the devil, 
transportation through the air on sticks, straws, or bed- 
staves ; transformation into the shapes of cat, dog, wolf, 
raven, &c. ; intercourse with imps and familiars ; witches' 
sabbaths ; charms ; conjurations ; weeping the pre- 
scribed three tears with the left eye only, or not v/eep- 
ing at all ; swimming on the surface of the water, 
because of the Christian character of that element, 
which refused to admit a devil-devoted soul within its 
bosom ; apparitions, or spectres of witches troubling 
the afflicted — souls quitting their bodies, but taking 
with them the spiritual substance even of woven gar- 
ments; with the whole course of hes and delusions 



400 THE WITCHES OF ENGLAND. 

belonging to the subject, from the devil's baptism to tlie 
imps' bigges. All this seemed but so much delusion to 
plain John Webster, with his unidealising common 
sense and kindly heart ; yet a delusion so fraught with 
sin and danger as to make it a Christian man's first 
duty to combat and destroy it. Wherefore was he most 
barbarously and evilly entreated by Glanvil in his 
" Saducismus Triumphatus " — the answer to the " Dis- 
playing of Supposed Witchcraft " — and a mighty pretty 
quarrel, full of the choicest amenities, was the result. 
But as Glanvil had error and credulity, and Webster 
reason and right judgment on his side, it mattered little 
who was assumed to have the best of it for the moment. 
Time and education gradually settled the question, and 
buried it for a time out of sight ; yet it has sprung up 
anew of late, and now needs settling again. 

THE BIDEFORD TROUBLES.* 

In the July of 1682, Temperance Lloyd, of Bideford^ 
or " Bytheford," was accused of bewitching Mrs. Grace 
Thomas. Temperance, being a little crazy, had cried 
one day on meeting Mrs. Grace, who had been for long 
months but a poor, "dunt," feckless body; and when 
asked why she wept had made answer, " For joy to see 
her who had been so ill, walk abroad again without 
disaster." But that yery same night Mrs. Grace was 
taken with fresh pains, " sticking and pricking Pains, 
as if Pins and Awls had been thrust into her Body, 
from the Crown of her Head to the Soles of her Feet, 
and she lay as if she had been upon a rack ;" and none 
but Temperance Lloyd the cause thereof, despite all her 
hypocritical tears. And did not Elizabeth Eastcheap 
* Boulton's ' Compleat History of Magick.' 



THE BIDEFORD TROUBLES. 401 

see her knee, which looked as if it had been pricked in 
nine places with a thorn ? And when Temperance was 
asked if she had any clay or wax wherewith to torment 
3Irs. Grace, did she not confess to a bit of leather which 
she had pricked nine times, and which was as full of 
venom and sorcery as any wax or clay in the world ? 
Besides, it came out afterwards, that she had gone to 
Thomas Eastcheap's shop in the form of a gray or 
" braget cat," and thence taken out a " puppit or picture, 
commonly called a cliild's baby," which she stuck full 
of pins, whereby to prick Grace to death. When 
asked in what part of the house the said puppet or 
picture was hidden, she refused to tell, saying the 
devil would tear her in pieces if she confessed. Anne 
Wakely, too, the neighbour who went to nurse poor 
Grace, had her word to say ; for one morning — it was 
on a bonny day in June — she saw " something in the 
shape of a magpye come at the chamber window ;" and 
when Temperance was questioned as to what she knew 
of this fluttering thing, she made answer that it was the 
Black Man in the shape of a bird which she had sent 
to trouble poor rheumatic pain-racked Grace. For 
Temperance was not stiff. She was easily brought to 
confess how she had given herself over to the ser- 
vice of a black man, who made her do all manner of 
hurt to her neighbom'S — made her pinch Grace Thomas, 
and bewitch AYiUiam Herbert to his death twelve years 
ago, and destroy Anne Fellows three years since — for 
both of which crimes she had been arraigned and ques- 
tioned at the time, but had managed to get clear. 
Now, however, she confessed that she had been guilty of 
them. The dread and evil fame and poverty under 
which she had lived so long had done their appointed 
work on her poor old brain; and she was ready to 

2 D 



402 THE WITCHES OF ENGLAND. 

confess to anything which it was desired she should 
allow. Yes, she had bewitched the eyes of Jane 
Dalbin, but so secretly that no one had suspected her : 
and she had destroyed one woman by kissing her, 
holding her so tight that she squeezed her to death — 
the blood gushing out of her mouth and nose : and 
she hunted with the devil, he going before her in the 
shape of a hound; "doubtless he hunted for souls," 
says a very odd tract which gives this additional trait of 
diabolical management and the economy of time. Being 
asked of what stature was her black man, she said " he 
was above the Length of her Arm ; and that his Eyes 
were very big ; and that he hopped, or leaped in the 
way before her ;" but when asked if she had made any 
contract with him she said " No ; neither had she 
gone through the keyhole when she went to harm 
Grace Thomas, but through the door, the devil leading 
her, and both invisible ; and that she had been made 
to pinch and torment Grace ; and that the devil beat 
her about the head grievously because she would not 
kill her." She had never bewitched any ships or boats, 
nor done a child to death ; for the child who stole her 
apple died of the small-pox, and she was guiltless of its 
decease ; nor had she ever ridden over an arm of the 
sea on a cow — "No, master, never; it was she," mean- 
ing another delated witch, Susanna Edwards, who did 
this. The worst thing she had ever done was to 
Grace Thomas, and then the devil made her do it, beat- 
ing her about the head and back in shape and form,' 
" black like a bullock." Temperance Lloyd was exe- 
cuted ; and died penitent and crazy. 

Mary Trembles was another delated witch. She be- 
witched Agnes AA^itefield with all manner of pains ; 
and Grace Barnes deposed to pricks and pains like awls 



THE BIDEFORD TROUBLES. 403 

and pins thrust into her, which evil Mary Trembles 
and Susanna Edwards had done together; for they 
were comrades and cronies, and would go hand-in-hand 
about the world, invisible to all save themselves and 
their master the devil. It was Susanna Edwards who 
had seduced Mary and got her to accept the service of 
the de^ol, who came to her as a Kon ; at wliich she was 
much frightened, though not hm-t ; and made her be- 
witch Grace Barnes, because said Grace would give her 
no meat. She was also executed, very penitent and 
quite resigned. 

Susanna Edwards was active and powerful in forespeak- 
ing. She sent pains to Dorcas Coleman — tormenting 
pains, and very grievous — so that Dr. George Bear could 
do her no good, but openly proclaimed her beyond his 
power for that she w^as bewitched ; and she held 
Anthony Jones pretty hardly, as Joane his wife deposed- 
For when Susan was apprehended, Anthony " observing 
her to gripe and twinkle her Hands upon her own 
Body, said to her, ' Thou Devil, thou art now torment- 
ing some Person or other.' " Upon which the said 
Susanna was displeased with him, and said, "Well 
enough I will fit thee." And fit him she did, for on his 
making one of the rabble that dragged her before the 
magistrates, Susanna turned round and looked at him, 
" so that he cried out, * I am now bewitched with this 
Devil, wife,' meaning Susanna Edwards, and presently 
leaped and capered like a madman, and fell a-shaking, 
quivering, and foaming, and for the space of half an 
Hour like a dying or dead Man." Susan knew the devil 
as a gentleman dressed in black clothes, and also as a 
Kttle boy ; but could not be induced to confess to any of 
the more striking monstrosities beyond what might 
have well belonged to an ordinary case of halluciaation. 



404 THE WITCHES OF ENGLAND. 

She was executed as the other two ; but we are not told 
if Grace Thomas, or Dorcas Coleman, or Grace Barnes, 
or Anthony Jones recovered their health now that the 
witches were dead, or if hysteria and rheumatism and 
neuralgia and scrofula w^ere found more troublesome 
enemies to conquer than three crazy old women. It 
would be curious as well as interesting to know the con- 
dition of the honestly deceived and actually diseased 
after the death of the possessing witch. In those in- 
stances where crutches were thrown away, and fits sud- 
denly brought to a close, the instant the law had laid 
its gripe on the neck of the unfortunate accused, we 
have no choice but to refer the whole proceedings to 
imposture quickened by enmity or the desire of noto- 
riety ; but there were cases where a strange and sudden 
disease did really appear as bewitchment to the afflicted, 
and of these one would be glad to know the after 
mental condition when the obsessing witch was killed, 
yet the obsessing sickness unconquered. Did expe- 
perience ever open their eyes or shake their faith ? or 
did they die in their belief that the stake and the 
gallows were the finest remedies known for disordered 
functions or organic mischief? No one of the time 
was sufficiently accurate, or sufficiently unprejudiced, to 
be able to give us reliable information, and thus we 
have lost a most valuable indication of the absolute 
power exercised by the mind over the body. 



SIR JOHN HOLT'S JUDGMENTS.* 

Mr. May Hill, minister of Beckington, in Somerset- 
shire (near Frome), had a servant, one Mary Hill, 

* Baxter. Hutchinson. 



Sm JOHN HOLT'S JUDGMENTS. 405 

whom Satan and the malice of his servants had griev- 
onslv bewitched. Mr. Baxter had brousfht to him a bag: 
of iron, nails, and brass which the girl had vomited, and 
he kept some of them to show his friends. "Nails 
about three or four inches long, doubled, crooked at the 
end, and pieces of old Brass doubled, about an Inch 
broad and two Inches long, with crooked edges," all of 
which Mary had brought up, together with about two 
hundred crooked pins. Elizabeth Carrier was first 
committed on the charge of having bewitched her ; but 
a fortnight after, Mary, whom this sacrifice had tempo- 
rarily appeased, went back to her old ways, and began 
to vomit nails and pieces of nails, brass, and handles of 
spoons, and so continued to do for six months and more ; 
aU the while crying out against Margery Coombes and 
Ann More, who, she said, appeared to her and tormented 
her. These two poor creatures were immediately ap- 
prehended and committed to the county gaol ; but 
Margery died as soon as she was imprisoned : and when 
my Lord Chief Justice Holt came to try old Ann, he 
said tliere was not sufficient evidence against her, so 
directed the jmy to acquit her. But the maid was 
worse than ever after this acquittal, and took to 
vomiting pieces of glass, and several pieces of bread 
and butter besmeared with a poisonous matter, ad- 
judged to be white mercury, and a great board nail, 
and, in short, Mr. May Hill and the neighbours did not 
know what she might not tlirow up at last, her mouth 
was so capacious, and the space against her gums so 
flexible. But as it was observed that she never vomited 
these tilings save in the morning, and that in the after- 
noon she was quiet; and when, upon inquiry, it was 
found that she always slept with her mouth wide open, 
and slept so soundly, that she could not be awakened 



406 THE WITCHES OF ENGLAND. 

by pulling, or jogging, or calling ; then Mr. Hill com- 
manded that some one should sit up with her, and keep 
her mouth rigidly and pertinaciously shut. And when 
they did this she vomited nothing, for the witches had 
not been able to convey their trash into her mouth. 
This experiment was satisfactorily tried for thirteen 
nights ; but as soon as she was left to sleep by herself, 
and with her mouth open, the wicked witches were sure 
to come to her and force all kinds of trash into it. But 
at last she wearied of her work; and, Sir John Holt 
not holding out much inducement to ill-tempered young 
women to declare themselves possessed because they had 
a disagi'eeable neighbour or two, she owned herself quite 
cured, and no more was heard of her fits or her nails. 

Poor old Widow Chambers,* of Upaston, in Suffolk, 
" a diKgent, industrious, poor woman," was accused of 
witchcraft, upon what grounds does not appear. " After 
she had been walk'd betwixt two," and, we may natu- 
rally suppose, pressed and plied with questions, she 
became confused and overwrought, and began to confess 
a gTeat many things of herself. She said that she had 
killed both her husband and Lady Blois, though the 
last had died a fair and evident death, " without any 
Hurt from that poor Woman :" and then some, to make 
trial of her wits, asked her if she had not killed such 
and such persons then living? to which old Widow 
Chambers maundered out yes, she had killed them 
sure enough. She was committed to Beccles Gaol, 
even after this ; but died before her trial, happily for 
her. 

This was in 1693. The following year was a busy 
one for the witch-finders, but fortunate for such of the 
witches as came before Lord Chief Justice Holt, a man 

* Dr. Hutchinson. 



SIR JOHN HOLT'S JUDGMENTS. 407 

of clear, well-balanced mind, evidently iiot given to 
superstitious beliefs, or to much veneration for the Black 
Art. Mother Munnings, of Hartis, in Suffolk, was one" 
of those brought before him at Bury St. Edmunds. 
She came with a bad character enough, accused of be- 
witching men to their death, spoiling brewings and 
churnings, and hurting cattle and corn — of being, in 
fact, a terrible pest to the whole neighbourhood. She 
killed Thomas Pannel her landlord, who had offended 
her by a rather summary method of ejectment, namely, 
taking her door off the hinges, since he could not get 
her out of his house any other way* * Mother Munnings 
was angry : who would not have been ? " Go thy way," 
she cried to him passionately ; "thy Nose shall lie upward 
in the Churchyard before Saturday next." This was 
enough. Thomas Pannel sickened on Monday and died 
on Tuesday, and was buried within the week according 
to her word. That this was true was attested by a certain 
witness, a doctor, who said also that Mother Munnings 
" was a dangerous woman : she could touch the Line of 
Life." Mother Munnings had an imp, a thing like a 
polecat ; and a man swore that one night, coming from 
the alehouse — a rather important circumstance — he saw 
her lift out of her basket two imps, a black one and a 
white ; and it was well known that Sarah Wager was 
taken both dumb and lame after a quarrel with her, 
and was in that condition even at the time of trial. 
But in the face of all these tremendous accusations the 
Lord Chief Justice Holt directed the jury to bring her 
in Not Guilty, and poor old Mother Munnings lived in 
peace and quietness for about two years longer, doing 
no harm to anybody, and when dying declaring her inno- 
cence. Dr. Hutchinson gives a very rational, but some- 
what quaint, explanation of two of the charges against 



408 THE WITCHES OF ENGLAND. 

her. On the death of her landlord, he says, that he, 
Thomas Pannel, " was a consumptive spent Man, and 
the Words not exactly as they swore them, and the 
whole Thing 17 years before;" and as to the imps — 
"the ^\Tiite Imp is believed to have been a Lock of 
Wool taken out of her Basket to spin ; and its Shadow, 
it is supposed, was the Black one." Not an impossibility 
mth an ignorant country clown, reeling home half 
drunk from the alehouse, and disposed to make a 
miracle out of the plainest matter before him seen 
through a witch's window. 

At the Ipswich assizes of that same year the Lord 
Chief Justice had to hold the sword of judgment un- 
sheathed between Margaret Elnore and her accusers. 
Margaret belonged to a family of witches, her grand- 
mother and her aunt having been both hanged for that 
rational offence ; and now, when Mrs. Kudge had been 
for three years in a languishing condition — ever since 
her husband had refused to take Elnore for his tenant 
— what so likely as that she was bewitched, and that 
the enraged witch and relative of witches had done it ? 
Besides, women who had quarrelled with Margaret had 
found themselves suddenly covered with vermin, not at 
all due to their own uncleanly habits, but to the 
diabolical power of old Elnore, who would send lice or 
locusts, disease or death, just as it suited her. For 
she had eight or nine imps, and she was plainly 
branded with the witch marks. Lord Chief Justice 
Holt pooh-poohed the imps and the vermin, and directed 
again a verdict of Not Guilty. So Margaret Elnore 
w^as suffered to live out the natural term of her life, 
and Mrs. Eudge recovered her health for a certain 
time ; but — some years after Margaret was peaceably 
laid in her gTave — " fell again into the same Kind of 



SIR JOHN HOLT'S JUDGMENTS. 409 

Pains (supposed from the Salt Humour), and died of the 
same Distemper." 

The next year Mary Guy was tried at Launceston for 
bewitching Philadelphia Row, who swore to her appa- 
rition perpetually troubling her, and who had the un- 
comfortable habit of vomiting pins, straws, and fea- 
thers. But the Lord Chief Justice turned a deaf ear 
to Philadelphia Eow also, and Mary Guy was acquitted. 
So was Elizabeth Horner, who, in 1696, was brought 
before him at Exeter, charged with haying bewitched 
three children belonging to WilHam Bovet, whereof one 
w^as dead : " another had her Legs twisted, and yet 
from her Hands and Knees she would spring Five Foot 
high." The children brought up crooked pins, and 
were grievously bitten, and pinched, and pricked, and 
bruised — the marks of all this ill usage appearing 
plainly on the flesh ; and they swore that Bess Horner's 
head would go off her shoulders and walk quietly into 
their stomachs : and the mother deposed " that one of 
them walked up a smooth plastered Wall, till her Feet 
were nine Foot high, her Head standing off from it." 
This she did five or six times, laughing and saying that 
Bess Horner held her up. Old Bess had a kind of wart 
or excrescence on her shoulder, which William Bovet 's 
children said was her witch-mark, and where her imp — 
a toad — sucked ; but the Lord Chief Justice shook his 
head, and Bess Horner was let to live on in her own 
way, taking off her head at will, and sending it into 
children's bodies, and nourishing a devil in shape of a 
toad on her shoulder — the law and judgment not inter- 
posing. The Lord Chief Justice had very many cases 
of witchcraft brought before him — about eleven places 
in all being supposed to be so infected — but he brought 
in every one " not guilty." 



410 THE WITCHES OF ENGLAND. 

One of the most celebrated cases tried by him was 
that of Eichard Hathaway, who came before him at 
the Guildford Assize of 1701 with a pitiful tale of 
possession and bewitchment, all owing to Sarah Mor- 
duck, of Southwark, in which parish he too was living 
as apprentice to Thomas Wellyn, blacksmith. Eichard 
had fits and convulsions, in all probability real enough, 
for he was sent to the hospital, where he lay for seven 
weeks in a pitiable condition, sometimes bent double, 
and at all times strangely and fearfully contorted. 
This began in September, 1690,* he said, when the first 
appearances of being bewitched manifested themselves. 
For then he vomited crooked pins in great numbers, 
and lumps of tin, and loose nails, and nut-shells, and 
stones ; and he foamed at the mouth ; and bowed him- 
self into an arch ; and lay as if dead ; and barked like 
a dog ; and burnt as if with fire ; and in the midst of all 
signed that Sarah Morduck had bewitched him, and 
that he should never be well till he had " scratched " 
her. So she was brought to him to be scratched ; after 
which he ate and drank and had his sight and was 
perfectly well for six weeks together. Then he fell ill 
again, and must needs scratch her for this attack ; and 
this time with more unction, for Sarah " was assaulted 
in her own House, and grievously abused ; her Hair and 
Face torn ; she was kicked, thrown to the Ground, 
stamped on, and threatened to be put into a Horse 
Pond, to be tried by Swimming, and very hardly escaped 
with her Life." To avoid being absolutely murdered, 
she left Southwark and went into London ; but still was 
not safe, for she was constantly being followed in the 
streets, and was often in danger of being pulled to 
pieces by a mob w^hich credited all that Eichard Hath- 
* That date seems wrong : ought it not to be 1699 ? 



SIE JOHN HOLT'S JUDGMENTS. 411 

away said and did. Id 1701 she was taken before one 
Sir Thomas Lane, who ordered her to be stript and 
searched, and let Hathaway loose again on her to 
scratch her. After which he was well as before ; and 
then Sarah Morduck was committed, and prayers were 
offered up in the churches for Hathaway, and col- 
lections made for him in the congregations, and six or 
seven pounds at a time got for him, besides various 
other sums, to bear his charges at the Assizes, and in- 
demnify him for the evil the witch had inflicted. At 
the Assizes (Guildford, July, 1701) Sarah Morduck was 
brought out of prison to be tried for her life by the 
Lord Chief Justice : with the usual result in his trials of 
witches : she was released, but Hathaway took her place, 
and was committed to the Marshalsea as a cheat and 
impostor, lying, for the first part of the time, well and 
hearty, but afterwards falling into liis fits again as if 
bewitched. He was then experimented with ; given 
another woman to scratch, under the idea that it was 
Sarah; whom he scratched quite contentedly, and as 
well after he had done so. When he found out his 
mistake he was blind and dumb again. But now, it 
being specially desired to know the truth, when he 
brought up his crooked pins, his hands were kept care- 
fully out of his pockets, which then were searched, and 
found plentifully supplied ; and all the strange noises 
which had been heard to issue out of his bed were 
discovered to have been made by his own feet scratching 
the bedposts ; and his miraculous fasting was proved a 
cheat, for Mrs. Kensy's maid, who had got into his con- 
fidence by a stratagem, brought him meat and drink pri- 
vately, and Mr. Kensy and his friends peeping through a 
private hole saw him eat it quite composedly. So one 
by one his pretences were destroyed, and he was openly 



412 THE WITCHES OF ENGLAKD. 

convicted of cozening and imposture. The Lord Chief 
Justice thought this a more cognizable crime than 
witchcraft, and condemned Eichard Hathaway to be 
imprisoned for a year, and to stand in the pillory thrice 
during the period. Thus he was made a warning to 
all hysterical youths and maidens who took to posses- 
sion as a good trade, and who liked the prayers of the 
faithful, and the money of the credulous, and the luxury 
of ill-treating any one specially spited, and the atten- 
tions of the gentry, and the pity of the commonalty, 
and all manner of petting and cossiting better than 
coarse hard fare and the scanty pleasures wrung from 
horny-handed labour. This Lord Chief Justice, Sir 
John Holt, may be taken as one of the greatest, if of 
the less noisy and notorious, benefactors of England 
known ; setting himself so firmly as he did against this 
cruel and debasing superstition, and so manfully up- 
holding the claims of humanity and common sense 
against all the " possibilities " of idealism, and the wild 
errings of credulity. From his time the witch madness 
sensibly declined, and folks woke gradually to the pos- 
session of their ordinary faculties. 



THE SUEEEY DEMONIAC* 

" What, Satan ! is this the Dancing that Eichard 
gave himself to thee for ? Can'st thou Dance no 
better? Eansack the old Eecords of all past Times 
and Places in thy Memory : Can'st thou not there find 
out some better way of Trampling? Pump thine Li- 
vention dry : Cannot that universal Seed-plot of subtile 

* Boulton's ' Compleat History of Magick.' Dr. Hutchinson's 
' Historical Essay.' 



THE SURREY DEMONIAC. 413 

Wiles and Stratagems spring up one new Method of 
Cutting Capers ? Is this the top of Skill and Pride, to 
shuffle Feet, and brandish Knees thus, and to trip like 
a Doe, and skip Kke a Squirrel ? And wherein differs 
thy Leapings from the Hoppings of a Frog, or Boun- 
cings of a Goat, or Friskings of a Dog, or Gesticula- 
tions of a Monkey ? And cannot a Palsy shake such a 
loose Leo- as that ? Dost thou not twirl like a Calf that 
hath the Turn, and twitch up thy Houghs just like a 
Spring-hault Tit ?" This was one of the conversations, 
or rather exhortations, which the dissenting ministers 
had with the devil inhabiting Richard Dugdale — he 
who was called by some the Surrey demoniac,* by 
others the impostor, as faith or reason was the stronger. 
Richard drew largely upon the faith of his generation, 
largely even for the credulous generation flourishing in 
the year of our Lord 1695 : for Richard the " possessed' 
vomited gold, silver, and brass rings, hair buttons, blue 
stones like flints, and once a big stone bloody at the 
edges ; and he was transformed sometimes to the man- 
ner of a horse, when he would gallop round the barn on 
all fours, quite as quickly as any cob ever foaled, and 
whinny like a cob, and eat provender Like a cob; and 
sometimes he was like a dog, "barring" and snarling 
and growling and barking so like a mastiff, that once 
a dog, a real mastiff and no counterfeit, set upon him, 
and would have given him rather an undesirable taste 
of canine fraternity had he not been prevented. Then he 
would be heavy or light in the same fit — now so heavy 
that six men could not lift him, now so light that he did 
not weigh six pounds : " sometimes light as a Feather- 
Boulster, but before he came out heavier than a Load of 
Corn," says a husbandman ; " as light as a Chip, and as 
* Surrey in Lancashire. 



414 THE WITCHES OF ENGLAND. 

heavy as a horse," says a carpenter : and he had fits of 
leaping, as fast as a man could count ; and he would 
dance on his toes and his knees, with marvellous agility 
— dance more quickly than ordinary men, not possessed, 
could do on their honest feet ; then he would He as if 
dead; or he would gape and snatch with his mouth, 
catching at flies ; and he had noises in his mouth and 
breast, as if a family of young whelps were lapping, 
snarling, or sucking in his inside ; and he rolled up his 
tongue into a lump and turned his eyes inward ; and 
talked gibberish, which some one said was Latin ; and 
played with rushes as if they had been dice and bowls. 
"And when he had thrown the 'Jack,' he said, *I must 
now throw my Gill ;' then running a good way, as if he 
had been running after a bowl, swearing, * Eun, Eun, 
Elee, Flee, Hold a Biass ;' and sometimes he catched 
up rushes, as if they had been bowls, swearing, * Sirrah, 
stand out of the Way, or I'll knock out your Brains,' 
adding, * I never was a Bowler, But don't Gentlemen 
do thus ?' " which is scarcely evidence to us that he was 
possessed, or in any abnormal condition whatsoever. 
Neither was his habit of swearing and cursing, " so that 
he would have affrighted ordinary men," any very dis- 
tinct sign of supernaturalism ; nor yet his insolence in 
saying to Mr. Carrington, who had adjured the devil in 
him mightily, " Thou shalt be Porter of Hell-Gates, 
Thou'st have Brewis and Toad Broath." Any bold- 
faced lad of eighteen might have said the same under 
cover of what he chose to call a fit. And as for the 
strange swelling, as big as a turkey's egg, which ran 
like a mouse about his body, whatever in that account 
was naturally impossible was either trick on his pait, or 
self-deception on the part of those who gave their testi- 
mony. Besides, they were all inclined to believe. 



THE SURREY DEMONIAC. 415 

Wliy, John Fletcher, who slept one night with Eichard, 
and felt something come up towards his knees, creeping 
higher and higher till it got to his heart — something 
about the bigness of a little cat or dog, which when he 
thought to catch "slipped thi'ough his hands like a 
Snig" — even that most unterrifying occurrence was trans- 
formed into a demoniacal visitant, and the thing that 
slipped through John Fletcher's hands like a snig was 
no other than Eichard Dngdale's devil come to pay him 
a midnight ^dsit. Then Eichard laid stones like hens' 
eggs, and in the manner of hens ; and he flung them to 
incredible distances when newly laid, and they felt warm 
as milk ; and he showed a slight amount of power in 
the matter of clairvoyance; but, oh faithless, feeble 
devil ! when Drs. Chew and Crabtree got hold of him, 
and bled him well, and gave him physic, the devil, who 
hates blue pill and black draught worse than holy 
water, flew away, and what all the prayers and fastings 
and exhortations of the ministry could not do, the lancet 
and a good dose of calomel and aloes effected without 
trouble. And then Eichard Dugdale confessed that he 
had never been possessed, but only ill, in consequence 
of a fight he had had with a man at a rush-bearing at 
^^alley, while he. Master Eichard, was in drink. The 
next day he was heavy and troubled in his mind, and 
drank a quantity of cold water while in the hay field 
making hay; but being advised to go up to the hall 
and get a drink of something more nourishing, he took 
the advice, and went into the house, where the cook 
maid gave him some drink ; and then he went into his 
own room and lay down, While thus on the bed the 
chamber door seemed to him to open of itself, and 
there came a thick smoke or mist, which on vanishing left 
him in extreme fear and horror; then appeared one 



416 THE WITCHES OF ENGLAND. 

Hindle, a fellow servant, with his hair cropped close to 
his ears, and he lay very heavy on his breast, but soon 
turned himself into the likeness of a naked child, 
which he caught by the knee ; but the child became a 
^'filmet" (foumart, pole-cat?), and went away with a 
shrill shriek. After this he raved, and was delirious ; 
but when Dr. Chew physicked him, and Dr. Crabtree 
bled him, and Dr. Chew physicked him again, he had 
no more " fits," no more " obsessions " or "possessions," 
was no longer the demoniac of Surrey, half maniac, 
half impostor, but went quietly back to ordinary life, 
and the whole tribe of exorcising ministers were for 
once discomfited. It was a singular mercy to his friends 
and acquaintances that Master Kichard did not take it 
into his head to delate any of them as witches, for 
assuredly he might have hanged haK Lancashire on the 
strength of the whelps inside his body, and his galloping 
on all fours like a horse. He would not have been the 
first to shed innocent blood for the sake of keeping up 
a notoriety which, originally begun in very ordinary 
and natural disease, was afterwards continued in decep- 
tion, fraud, and lies. 



THE GROCEE'S YOUNG MAN.* 

A few years after (1704) Sarah Griffiths lay sus- 
pected for a witch, and a bad one, for all the children 
in her neighbourhood were afflicted with strange dis- 
tempers, and had visions of cats and the like, so that no 
one coveted poor Sarah's company, and many removed 
because of her. Her guilt was discovered at last by a 
jolly young grocer's lad, who was one day weighing her 

* A Tract of one leaf in a collection of trials. 



THE GROCER'S YOUNG MAN. 417 

out some soap, but the scales would not hang right, 
whereat he laughed and cried out they were bewitched. 
Sarah Griffiths did not understand joking. She got 
very angry, and ran out of the shop threatening re- 
venge ; and the next night all the goods in the shop 
were turned topsy-turvy, and the day after the jolly 
young fellow was troubled with a strange disease — but 
by prayer released. Meeting her by chance some time 
after, as he and some friends were walking up to New 
Kiver Head, they resolved to swim her. They tossed 
her in, and she swam like a cork. They kept her there 
for some time, but at last she got out, and struck the 
young man on the arm, telling him he should pay 
dearly for what he had done. He looked at his arm 
and found it black as a coal, with the exact mark of her 
hand and fingers on it. He went home much tor- 
mented, vomiting old nails, pins, and the like, afflicted 
with fits and strange contortions, and for ever calling 
out against Mother Griffiths as he lay sickening and 
disabled. And then his arm gangrened and rotted 
off : whereby he died. Mother Griffith was taken by the 
constable, who, on her attempting to escape, knocked 
her down. She was secured more firmly, taken before 
the judge, and committed to Bridewell, whence — 
though I find no sequel to this strange little page — 
there is very little doubt that she was haled forth at the 
assizes only to be convicted and hanged. 

We are coming now (1712) to the last authentic trial 
for witchcraft where the accused was condemned to 
death for an impossible crime by a jury of sane, decent, 
respectable Englishmen. Jane Wenham was this latest 
offshoot of the old tree of judicial bigotry ; not the 
latest fruit, but the last instance of the law and judg- 
ment. There is a report current in most witch books 

2 E 



418 THE WITCHES OF ENGLAND. 

of a case at a later period — but I can find no authentic 
account of it — that, in 1716, of a Mrs. Hicks and her 
little daughter of nine, hanged at Huntingdon for selling 
their souls to the devil, bewitching their neighbours 
to death and their crops to ruin, and, as a climax 
to all, taking off their stockings to raise a storm. It 
may well be so, but I have not met with it in any 
reliable shape, so meanwhile we must accept Jane 
Wenham as the last officially condemned. 

THE WITCH OF WALKEKNE.* 

Jane Wenham was the witch of Walkerne, a little 
village in the north of Hertford. She had long lived 
under ill fame, and her neighbours were resolved to get 
rid of her at the earliest opportunity. That oppor- 
tunity presented itself in the person of John Chap- 
man's man, one Matthew Gilson, whom Jane sen 
into a daft state by asking him for a pennyworth of 
straw, which he refused to give her. The old woman 
went away, muttering and complaining, whereupon 
Matthew, impelled by he knew not what impulse, ran 
out of the barn for a distance of three miles, asking 
as he went for pennyworths of straw. Not getting 
any, he went on to some dirt heaps, and gathered 
up straw from them, which he put in his shirt and 
brought home. A witness testified that he had seen 
Gilson come back with his shirt stuffed full of straw, 
that he moved along quickly, and walked straight 
through the water, instead of passing over the bridge 
like any other decent man. For this odd behaviour of 
his servant, John Chapman, who had all along suspected 
Jane of more cunning than was good for him or her- 

* Various Tracts— and 'Thomas Wright's Narrative.' 



THE WITCH OF WALKEENE. 419 

called her a witch the next time he saw ner ; and Jane 
took liim before the magistrate, Sir Herbert Chauncey, 
to answer to the charge of defamation. But the magis- 
trate recommended them to go to Mr. Gardiner the 
minister, and a great beHever in witchcraft, and get 
their matter settled without more trouble or vexation. 
Mr. Garchner was too zealous to be just. He scolded 
poor old Jane roundly, and advised her to live more 
peaceably with her neighbours — which was just what she 
wanted to do — and gave as his award that Chapman do 
pay the fine of one shilling. While this bit of one- 
sided justice was going on, Anne Thorne, Mr. Gardiner's 
servant, was sitting by the fire with a dislocated knee. 
Jane, not able to compass her wicked will on Chapman, 
and angry that Mr. Gardiner had spoken so harshly to 
her, turned her malice on the girl, and bewitched her, 
so that as soon as they all left the kitchen Anne felt a 
strange " Eoaming in her Head, and she thought she 
must of Necessity run somewhere." In spite then of 
her dislocated knee, she started off and ran up the 
close, and away over a five-barred gate " as nimbly as a 
greyhound," along the highway and up a hill. And 
there she met two of John Chapman's men, who wanted 
her to go home with them ; and one took her hand ; 
but she was forced away from them, speechless, and 
not of her own volition, and so was driven on, on, 
towards Cromer, where the great sea would have either 
stopped or received her. But when she came to 
Hockney Lane, she met there a " httle Old Woman 
muffled up in a Kiding-Hood," who asked her whither 
she was going. " To Cromer," says Anne, " for sticks 
to make me a fire." " There be no sticks at Cromer," 
says the little old woman in the riding hood : " here be 
sticks enow ; go to that oak tree and pluck them there." 



420 THE WITCHES OF ENGLAND. 

Which Anne did, laying them on the ground as they 
were gathered. Then the old woman bade her pull off 
her gown and apron, and wrap the sticks in them ; 
asking her if she had ne'er a pin about her ; but finding 
that she had not, she gave her a large crooked pin, \vith 
which she bade her pin her bundle, then vanished away. 
So Anne Thorne ran home half naked, with her bundle 
of leaves and sticks in her hand, and sat down in the 
kitchen, crying out '' I am ruined and undone !" 

When Mrs. Gardiner had opened the bundle, and 
seen all the twigs and leaves, she said they would burn 
the witch, and not wait long about it ; so they flung the 
twigs and leaves into the fire ; and while they were 
burning in came Jane Wenham, asking for Anne's 
mother, for she had, she said, a message to her, how 
that she was to go and wash next day at Ardley Bury, 
Sir Herbert Chauncey's place : which on inquiry turned 
out to be a falsehood: consequently Jane Wenham 
was set down doubly as a mtch, the charm of burning 
her in the sticks having proved so effectual. John 
Chapman and his men then told their tale. Mr. Gar- 
diner was not slow in fanning the flame into a fire, and 
poor old Jane was examined, searched for marks but 
none found, and committed to gaol, there to wait her 
trial at the next assizes. She earnestly entreated not 
to go to prison ; protested her innocence, and appealed 
to Mrs. Gardiner to help her, woman-like, and not to 
swear against her; offering to submit to be swum — 
anytliing they would — so that she might be kept free of 
jail. But Sir Herbert Chauncey was just manly and 
rational enough not to allow of this test, though the Vicar 
of Ardeley tried her with the Lord's Prayer, which she 
could not repeat : and terrified and tortured her into a 
kind of confession, wherein she implicated tliree other 



THE WITCH OF WALKERNE. 421 

women, who were immediately put under arrest, though 
they came to no harm in the end. Wlien she was 
brought to trial, sixteen witnesses, including three 
clergymen, were standing there ready to testify against 
her, how that she had bewitched this one's cattle, and 
that one's sheep; and taken all the power from this 
one's body, and all the good from that one's gear ; and 
slaughtered this cliild, and that man, by her evil eye 
and her curses ; and in fact how that she had done all 
the mischief that had happened in the neighbom^hood 
for years past. And there was Matthew Gilson, who 
had been sent mad, and forced to wander about the 
country with his shirt stuffed fuU of straw like a scare- 
crow ; and Anne Thorne, who had had fits ever since 
her marvellous journey with the dislocated knee ; and 
another Anne, very nearly as hardly holden as the 
first ; and others beside, whom her malice had rendered 
sick and lame, and unfit for decent life : moreover, 
two veracious witnesses deposed positively to her 
taking the form of a cat when she would, and to hear- 
ing her converse with the devil when under the form of 
a cat, he also as a cat ; together with Anne Thome's 
distinct accusation that she was beset with cats — tor- 
mented exceedingly — and that all the cats had the face 
and the voice of Jane Wenham. 

The lawyers, who beKeved little ia the devil and less 
in witchcraft, refused to draw up the indictment* on any 
other charge save that of " conversing familiarly with 
the devd in the form of a cat." But iq spite of 
Mr. Bragge's earnest appeals agaiast such profanation, 
and the ridicule which it threw over the whole matter, 
the jury found the poor old creature guilty, and the 
judge passed sentence of death against her. The 
evidence was too strong. Even one of the Mr. Chaun- 



422 THE WITCHES OF ENGLAND. 

ceys deposed that a cat came knocking at his door, and 
that he killed it — when it vanished away, for it was no 
other than one of Jane Wenham's imps ; and all Mr. 
Gardiner's house went mad, some in one way and some 
in another : and credible witnesses deposed that they 
had seen pins come jumping through the air into Anne 
Thome's mouth, and when George Chapman clapped 
his hand before her mouth to prevent them skipping in, 
he felt one stick against his hand, as sharp as might be ; 
and every night Anne's pincushion was left full, and 
every morning found empty, and who but Jane could 
have conveyed them all from the pincushion into her 
mouth, where they were to be found all crooked and 
bent ? But though the jury could not resist the tre- 
mendous weight of all this evidence, and the judge 
could not resist the jury, he managed to get a reprieve 
which left the people time to cool and reflect, and then 
he got a pardon for her — quietly and kindly done. And 
Colonel Plummer, of Gilston, took her under his pro- 
tection, and gave her a small cottage near his house, 
where she lived, poor soul, in peace and safety for the 
end of her days, doing harm to no one and feared by 
none. As for Anne Thorne, the doctor, who had 
ordered her, as part of his remedy, to wash her hands 
and face twice a day in fair water, and who, as another 
part, had her watched and sat with by a " lusty young 
fellow " who asked nothing better, managed matters so 
well, that in a short time Anne and her brisk bachelor 
were married ; and from that time we hear no more of 
her vomiting crooked pins, or being tormented with 
visions of cats wearing Jane Wenham's face, and speak- 
ing with Jane Wenham's voice. But though all the 
rest got well off with their frights and follies, no public 
compensation was given to poor old Jane for the brutal 



OUR LATEST. 423 

attacks of the mob upon her, for the hauling and 
maiming and scratching and tearing, by which they 
proved to their own satisfaction that she was a witch, 
and deserved only the treatment accorded to witches. 



OUR LATEST. 

But if the last officially condemned, Jane was not the 
last actually destroyed, for a curious MS. letter to be 
found .in the British Museum " From Mr. Manning, 
Dissenting Teacher, at Halstead, in Essex, to John 
Morley, Esq., Halstead," gives us a strange garbled 
account of a reputed sacrifice ; and the sadder and more 
brutal story of Kuth Osborne follows a few years 
after. 

"Halstead, August 2, 1782. 

" SiE — The narrative which I gave you in relation to 
witchcraft, and which you are pleased to lay your com- 
mands upon me to repeat, is as follows : — There was one 
Master CoUett, a smith by trade, of Haveningham, in 
the county of Suffolk, who, as 'twas customary with him, 
assisting the maide to churne, and not being able (as 
the phrase is) to make the butter come, threw a hot 
iron into the chum, under the notion of v^itchcraft in 
the case, upon which a poore labourer, then employed 
in carrying of dung in the yard, cried out in a terrible 
manner, ' They have killed me, they have killed me ;' 
still keeping his hand upon his back, intimating where 
the pain was, and died upon the spot. 

" Mr. CoUett, with the rest of the servants then present, 
took off the ])oor man's clothes, and found to their great 
surprise, the mark of the iron that was heated and 
thrown into the churn, deeply impressed upon his back. 



424 THE WITCHES OF ENGLAND. 

This account I had from Mr. Collett's own mouth, who 
being a man of unblemished character, I verily believe 
to be matter of fact. 

" I am, Sir, your obliged humble Servant, 

''Sam. Manning." 

The only falsehood, probably, in the history is the 
manner of the poor fellow's death, for either he was foully 
murdered on a wild suspicion of being concerned in the 
witching of a dirty milk vessel, or he died suddenly of 
some ordinary organic complaint, and the circumstances 
of the horse-shoe and the scarred back were purely 
imaginary. But again in 1751 was witch blood actually 
poured out on English soil, and the cry of the innocent 
mm-dered sent up to heaven in vain for mercy. At 
Tring, in Hertfordshire, lived an old man, one Osborne, 
and his wife ; poor as witches always were ; old — past 
seventy both of them — and obliged to beg from door to 
door for what, if the popular superstition was true, the 
devil had given them power to possess at any moment 
for themselves. But this was a point of view no one 
ever took. In the rebellion of '45, just six years ago, 
old Mother Osborne had gone to one Butterfield, a 
dairyman living at Gubblecot, to beg for buttermilk. 
Butterfield was a churlish fellow, and told her roughly 
that he had not enough for his hogs, still less for her. 
Says old Mother Osborne, grumbhng, " The Pretender 
will soon have thee and thy hogs too." Now the Pre- 
tender and the devil were in, league together, according 
to the belief of many, and old Mother Osborne might 
just as well have told the dairyman at once that he 
was going to the devil, or that she would send her 
imps to bewitch him; for soon Butterfield's calves 

* Thomas Wright. 



\ 



OUK LATEST. 425 

became distempered, and soon his cows died, and liis 
affairs went so far to the bad that he left his dauy and 
took a public- house, in hopes that the imps which could 
bewitch the one might be powerless against the other. 
But he reckoned without liis host, for in 1751 he him- 
self was bewitched ; he had fits — bad fits — and sent for 
a white witch all the way from Northamptonshire to 
tell him what ailed him. The white witch told him 
he was bewitched, and bade six men, with staves and 
pitchforks hanging round then- necks as counter charms 
for their own safety, watch his house night and day. 
Doubtless they discovered all they were set there to 
seek. 

Suddenly there appeared a notice that certain and 
various witches were to be ducked at Longmarston the 
22nd day of April. A crowd assembled at Tring to 
watch the sport ; and but one thought went through 
that crowd — the Osbornes were to be the ducked 
witches, and the sport they would have would be rare. 
The parish officers had taken the old couple into the 
workhouse for safety, but the mob broke through the 
gates, and crushed down the doors, and searched the 
whole place through, from end to end, even to the salt 
box, " lest the witch should have made herself little," 
and have hidden in the comers. But they could not 
find her, not even there ; so, in a rage, they broke the 
windows, smashed the furniture, and then heaped up 
straw high against the house, threatening to burn it 
down, and every living soul within it, if the Osbornes 
were not given up them. The master was frightened 
he had never faced such a scene before, and his nerve 
forsook him — not unreasonably. He brought the old 
people from their hiding place, and gave them up to 
that wild, tossing, furious mob. In a moment they were 



426 THE WITCHES OF ENGLAND. 

stripped stark naked, then cross-bound in the prescribed 
manner, wrapped loosely in a sheet, and dragged two 
miles along the road to a small pond or river, where 
with many a curse and many a kick they were thrown 
in, to prove whether they were witches or not. A 
chimney sweeper, called Colley, was the most active of 
the crew. Seeing that Mother Osborne did not sink, he 
waded into the water and turned her over with his stick. 
She slipped out of the sheet, and thus lay exposed, 
naked, and half choked with mud, before the brutal 
crowd, who saw nothing pitiful, and nothing shame- 
ful, in her state. After a time they dragged her out, 
flung her on the bank, and kicked and beat her till she 
died. Her husband died also, but not on the spot. 
The man who had arranged this rare diversion then 
went round among the crowd collecting money in return 
for his amusement. But government took the matter 
up. A coroner's inquest was held, and a verdict of 
wilful murder returned against Colley, the chimney 
sweep, who, much to his own surprise and the indigna- 
tion of the people — many ranking him as a martyr — 
was hanged by the neck till he was dead, for the murder 
of the witch of Tring, poor old Kuth Osborne. The act 
against witchcraft, under colour and favour of which all 
the judicial murders had been done, had been repealed 
a few years before, namely, in 1736, and Colley's com- 
rades bewailed piteously the degenerate times that were 
at hand, when a witch was no longer held fit sport for 
the public, but was protected and defended like 
ordinary folk, and let to live on to work her wicked will 
unchecked. 

But the snake is scotched, not killed. So far are we 
in advance of the men of the ruder past, inasmuch as 
our superstitions, though quite as silly, are less cruel 



1 



OUK LATEST. 427 

than theirs, and hurt no one but ourselves. Yet still we 
have our wizards and witches lurking round area gates 
and prowling through the lanes and yards of the re- 
moter country districts ; still we have our necromancers, 
who call up the dead from their graves to talk to us 
more trivial nonsense than ever they talked while 
living, and who reconcile us with earth and humanity 
by showing us how infinitely inferior are heaven and 
spirituahty ; still we have the unknown mapped out in 
clear lines sharp and firm ; and stiU the impossible is 
asserted as existing, and men are ready to give their 
lives in attestation of what contravenes every law of 
reason and of nature ; still we are not content to watch 
and wait and collect and fathom before deciding, but 
for every new group of facts or appearances must at 
once draw up a code of laws and reasons, and prove, to 
a mathematical certainty, the properties of a chimera, 
and the divine Hfe and beauty — of a lie. Even the 
mere vulgar belief in witchcraft remains among the 
lower classes ; as witness the old gentleman who died at 
Polstead not so long ago, and who, when a boy, had 
seen a witch swum in Polstead Ponds, " and she went 
over the water like a cork;" who had also watched 
another witch feeding her three imps like blackbirds ; 
and who only wanted five pounds to have seen all the 
witches in the parish dance on a knoll together : as 
witness also the strange letter of the magistrate, in the 
' Times ' of April 7, 1857 ; and the stranger trial at 
Stafford, concermng the bewitched condition of the 
Charlesworths, small farmers Kviug at Eugely, which 
trial is to be found in the ' Times ' of March 28, 1857 ; 
the case reported by the clergyman of East Thorpe, 
Essex, who had actually to mount guard against the 
door of an old Trot accused of witchcraft; while the 



428 THE WITCHES OF ENGLAND. ^'^^^ 

instances of silly servant maids, and fortune tellers 
whose hands are to be crossed with silver, and the stars 
propitiated with cast off dresses and broken meat, are as 
numerous as ever. And, indeed, so long as conviction 
without examination, and belief without proof, pass as 
the righteous operations of faith, so long will superstition 
and creduhty reign supreme over the mind, and the 
functions of critical reason be abandoned and foresworn. 
And as it seems to me that credulity is even a less de- 
sirable frame of mind than scepticism, I have set forth 
this collection of witch stories as landmarks of the ex- 
cesses to which a bUnd behef may hurry and impel 
humanity, and perhaps as some shght aids to that 
much misused common sense which the holders of im- 
possible theories generally consider " enthusiastic," and 
of " a nobler life " to tread under foot, and loftily 
ignore. 



THE END. 



I.ONXX)N ; PRINTED BV W. CLOWES AND SONS, STAMFORD STREET. 



'm 



LIBRARY OF COg^ 

022 204 402 9 



